Kudurru

Babylonian kudurru of the late Kassite period found near Baghdad by the French botanist André Michaux (Cabinet des Médailles, Paris)

A kudurru was a type of stone document used as a boundary stone and as a record of land grants to vassals by the Kassites and later dynasties in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 7th centuries BC.[1][2][3] The original kudurru would typically be stored in a temple while the person granted the land would be given a clay copy to use to confirm legal ownership.[4] Kudurrus are often linked to what are usually called "ancient kudurrus", land grant stones from the third millennium (typically Sargonic and Ur III) which serve a similar purpose though the word kudurru did not emerge until the 2nd millennium (Middle Babylonian in fact).[5]

  1. ^ Paulus, Susanne. "10. The Babylonian Kudurru Inscriptions and their Legal and Sociohistorical Implications". Volume 1 Karduniaš. Babylonia under the Kassites 1, edited by Alexa Bartelmus and Katja Sternitzke, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 229-244
  2. ^ Kathryn E. Slanski, "The Babylonian entitlement narûs (kudurrus) : a study in their form and function", Boston : American Schools of Oriental Research, 2003 ISBN 089757060X
  3. ^ Brinkman, J. A. “Babylonian Royal Land Grants, Memorials of Financial Interest, and Invocation of the Divine.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 49, no. 1, 2006, pp. 1–47
  4. ^ J A Brinkman, “Remarks on Two Kudurrus from the Second Dynasty of Isin.” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’archéologie Orientale, vol. 61, no. 1, 1967, pp. 70–74
  5. ^ I. J. Gelb, P. Steinkeller, and R. M. Whiting Jr, "OIP 104. Earliest Land Tenure Systems in the Near East: Ancient Kudurrus", Oriental Institute Publications 104 Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1989, 1991 ISBN 978-0-91-898656-6 Text Plates