Slavery in the Texts from Late Bronze Age Emar
Alexandrov Boris E.
The article is devoted to the analysis of the terms ÌR (ardu “servant, slave”), GEMÉ (amtu “female-servant, slave”), SAG (rēšu “head”), TUR (ṣuhāru “servant”) and ZI (napištu “soul”) in the texts from the Late Bronze Age Emar (14th–13th cent. BCE). In most cases, these terms referred to chattel slaves who, in their majority, were privately owned. The mentions of state or temple slaves are meager in number. Women and children were the most numerous groups among slave population. It can be assumed that slave labor was restricted mainly to household tasks. In any way, the texts lack straightforward references to the slaves’ engagement in agricultural and artisanal works. Slavery was chiefly maintained due to internal sources of society (criminals, insolvent debtors, house-born slaves), slaves from abroad were rare. The terms ÌR and GEMÉ could also describe individuals sold to creditors for debts, whose legal status differed from that of chattel slaves. Its key feature was the possibility of the term of enslavement ending irrespective of the owner’s will, at any time when the debts were paid back.
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