By the Rivers of Babylon, We Served our Master
- Autores: Lieselot Vandorpe
- Localización: ‘Names and Their Environment’: Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Glasgow, 25-29 August 2014 / Carole Hough (ed. lit.), Daria Izdebska (ed. lit.), 2016, ISBN 978-0-85261-947-6, págs. 277-277
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
-
Resumen
Undoubtedly, names were as important in Mesopotamia as they are in modern societies and not only for the ease of reference in administrative and legal texts. Information on the naming practices in the Ancient Near East is quite sparse and for the most part circumstantial due to the nature of our cuneiform text sources. This poster represents an in-depth analysis of the naming of slaves in Old Babylonian Sippar (1st half of 2nd millennium BC). For, as Patterson (1982: 54) already noticed, a man’s name is more than simply a way of calling him, it is the verbal signal of his whole identity, his being-in-the-world as a distinct person and establishes and advertises his relation with kinsmen. First, an analysis of the slave names of Old Babylonian Sippar, with particular attention to gender, age, date, etymology, etc. is made. Secondly, the hypothesis of the uniqueness of slave names is treated, in comparison to slave naming practices from different cultures and periods. Thirdly, the possibility of a ‘rite de passage’ during the enslavement ritual as being the moment of name change is investigated. Finally, attention is paid to aspects of kinship terms in Mesopotamian slave names.
