Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia: Confinement and Control Until the First Fall of Babylon

Description

Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia explores the earliest historical evidence related to imprisonment in the history of the world. While many historical investigations into prisons have revolved around the important question of punishment, this work moves beyond that more narrow approach to consider the multifunctional practices of detaining the body in ancient Iraq. It is the contention of this book that imprisonment arose out of the desire to control and detain the body in relation to labor. The practice of detainment for coercion became adaptable to a variety of circumstances and goals, which shaped the contexts and practices of imprisonment. With time, religious ideology was attached to imprisonment. In one literary text, a prisoner was refined like silver and given new birth in the prison. The misery of imprisonment gave rise to lament through which a criminal could be ritually purified and restored to a right relationship with their personal god. Beyond this literary perspective, this work reconstructs how imprisonment and religious ideology intersected with the judicial process and explores the evidence related to the reasons behind imprisonment, the treatment of prisoners, and the evidence related to the lengths of their stays. Cover Prisons in Ancient Mesopotamia: Confinement and Control until the First Fall of Babylon Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments List of Figures List of Tables Introduction The Birth and Evolution of the Prison in Modernity The Prison and Punishment A Roadmap to This Book 1: Imprisonment from the Dawn of History to the First Fall of Babylon Introduction What We Know and What We Don’t Methodology and the Hymn to the Prison Goddess Nungal “A Hymn to the Prison Goddess Nungal” 2: Confine and Control: Lexical and Social-Historical Summary Introduction e2-eš2 bīt asīrī e2 ennuĝ = bīt ṣibitti Other Key Terms The Prison in Literary Texts Conclusion 3: How to End up Imprisoned Introduction Law Collections in Ancient Mesopotamia Imprisonment in Edicts and Law Collections Reasons for Imprisonment Conclusion 4: Judicial Process and Proof Introduction Justice in Mesopotamia Judicial Summoning Detainment of Suspects Judicial Process The Awe of the Judicial Process Oaths The River Ordeal Imprisonment of the Guilty Conclusion 5: The Imprisoned Life Introduction Life on the Inside: A Literary Perspective Personal Accounts of Life on the Inside Ur III Prison Rations Old Babylonian Prison Rations Time Served Conclusion 6: The King in the Cage: Ritual Purification and Imprisonment Introduction Purity and Purification Purity and the Gods Control Through Imprisonment Ritual Purification Through Imprisonment Imprisonment and Positive Change Conclusion Conclusion Bibliography Authors Primary Texts General Subject Index