Middle Assyrian Laws

Historical source page 49

48 Morris Jastrow, Jr. and do not bury her 46 ; and if through the miscarriage she dies, they (likewise) impale her 47 and do not bury her; and when they curse 45 that woman because of her miscarriage, they say [to her (?)] 49 • (The rest of the law — nine lines — is broken off.) 52 (Of this law only a few signs of the last four lines are left. It likewise dealt with striking a woman, slave girls and perhaps others.) 53 [If a man] takes a virgin from the house 50 of her father, [and against her will (?)] 61 does not return (her) to him; and if [by force?] 52 she had not been deflowered 53 and had not been handed over 54 , nor held as a claim on the house of her father, any man 48 No burial was the worst curse that could be imposed upon any one. It meant that the etimmu, or shade of the dead, wandered about without a resting place in Arallu — the gathering-place of the dead — suffering pangs of hunger and thirst. See the vivid description at the close of the Gilgamesh Epic (Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 512). 47 1, e., they impale the corpse — a good instance of Assyrian barbarism. See Post Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, 2, p. 46, for examples of punishment extended even to the corpse — characteristic of primitive society, though it is worth noting that (as Mr. C. H. Burr informs me) the same punishment was imposed on the corpses of suicides in England till 1823, and their personal property was confiscated till as recently as 1870. 48 Read [i-iz]-zi-ru-u-si. 49 The form of the curse was presumably given. 60 Read [is-tu bit a-Jri-i-id \us-bu-]tu-ii-ni. " One hesitates between supplying a-na bi-ii-hd, 'to her house', which would make a somewhat awkward construction, and ina pa-nv-ld (cf . § 23), in con- trast to ra-ma-an-M, 'with her consent', in § 54. 62 Are we perhaps to read [ina-e-mu-ka], 'by force'? The traces of ka are clear in Schroeder's copy. •* la-a pa-ti-a4u-*i-ni, 'not opened', the general term for the untouched virgin or animal. One is reminded of the law in the fragment of a Sumerian Code published by Clay, Miscellaneous Inscriptions in the Yah Babylonian Collection, No. 28, §§ 6-7, where a distinction is made between a girl abducted, but not 'known' (i. e., not raped) and one who was abducted and 'known' or actually seduced. 64 la-a ah-za-tu-u-ni, 'not taken', i. e., 'not taken by any one as a wife,' here applied to the girl captured, but not actually handed over to some man.