Bent Pyramid to be Opened to Tourists

Zahi Hawass, the head of the Egyptian antiquities service, has announced plans to open the “Bent” pyramid at Dashur to tourists for the first time. The neighboring “Red” pyramid is already open to tourists.

The “Bent” pyramid was probably built by the Pharaoh Sneferu, the father of Khufu (who built the Great Pyramid at Giza).

Dr. Hawass was quoted as saying that archaeologists believe that Sneferu’s burial chamber still lies undiscovered in the “Bent” pyramid, but this is news to me. I am not aware of any archaeologists who have made this claim. I will check into the published material and see if this claim has ever been made before.

Body of Cleopatra's Sister Identified?

The London Times is reporting that the skeleton of Arsinoe, the younger sister of Cleopatra, has been identified. Arsinoe was murdered at Cleopatra and Mark Antony's orders. Here is a link to the story.

The body was found in 1926 in a tomb in Ephesus, where Arsinoe was banished and later murdered. Recent medical work on the body have led to the identification.

In other news out of Egypt, some gold jewelry has been found in the plundered tomb of Gahouti, the head of the treasury under Queen Hatshepsut. Here is a link to the story.

Sumerian Adoption Laws

A Sumerian Law Tablet (translated in "Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor" by Martha Roth) contains three laws relating to adoption:

#4 - If he (the adopted son) declares to his father and mother, "You are not my father," or "You are not my mother," he shall forfeit house, field, orchard, slaves and possessions and they shall him for silver (into slavery) for his full value.

#5 - (If) his (adoptive) father and mother declare to him, "You are not our son," they shall forfeit... the estate.

#6 - If his (adoptive) father and mother declare [to him], "You are not our son," they shall forfeit [the estate].

Similar laws to these existed in later Mesopotamian "law codes" and provided protection to both the adoptive parents and to the adopted child.

A Sumerian Reader: a Review

I am in London on a business trip and while in London, I visited Foyle’s Bookshop, which bills itself as the world’s largest book store, and they might be right about that. I found a book, A Sumerian Reader, by Konrad Volk, which I did not even know existed. It was a great find.

The book grew out of some texts that the author put together to give students practice reading Sumerian. The author published the current version of the work in 1999.

The book is a slim volume that is highly useful to the student of Sumerian. Dr. Volk includes texts from three genres: Royal Inscriptions, Legal Texts (marriage contracts, slave purchases, etc.) and “Economic Documents”. The texts are given in Sumerian characters and in transliteration. In all, 44 texts are presented in this volume.

The book also includes a Sumerian sign list (only for the signs used in this book), a Sumerian to English dictionary, a list of place names and person al names. Lists of divine names and Sacred Buildings are also given.

At 20 British Pounds, this book is a great value. Giving the student both the texts and the transliterations is a great help to self-learners who want to take the next step in learning Sumerian (after learning the language’s grammar).

Tutankhamen's Father Identified?

The Supreme Council for Antiquities in Egypt has relocated a stone block that was published many years ago by Gunther Roeder. This block has an inscription with the names of Ankhesenpaaten and Tutankhaten carved on it. Both names are not in cartouches and have the titles "King's daughter of his body" and "King's son of his body" respectively. Some have leapt to the conclusion that this indicates that both Tutankaten and his bride had the same father. Since we know that Ankesenpaaten's father was definately Akehenaten, this would make Tutankaten's father Akhenaten as well. Or would it?

Frankly, I am sceptical. It is possible that the block was carved to commemorate the couple's marriage. If so, there is no reason to conclude that their names occuring together shows that they had the same father. I do suspect that Akhenaten was Tutankaten's father, but this block does not prove it in my opinion.

On another topic, I will be away for much of the next three weeks, so my posts will be sporadic at best. Once I get back to normal, I will resume my posts on adoption in Mesopotamia.

The Laws of Eshnunna on Adoption

The "Laws of Eshnunna" have something to say about adoption as well. For instance:

#33 "If a slave woman acts to defraud and gives her child to a woman of the awilu-class, when he grows up should his master locate him, he shall sieze him and take him away."

No doubt this refers to a slave woman trying to keep her child from growing up as a slave by giving the child away for adoption. The owner of the mother has the right to reclaim the child if he can identify him / her.

#34 "If a slave of the palace should give her son or her daughter to a commoner for rearing, the palace shall remove the son or daughter whom she gave."

This law would seem to apply to a situation where the child is simply given away without a formal adoption. Otherwise, the next law makes no sense:

#35 "However, an adopter who takes in adoption the child of a slave woman of the palace shall restore (another slave of) equal value for the palace."

NOTE: the translations given here are from Roth, Martha. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd Edition. Society of Biblical Literature, 1997 (see my review of this book).

Hammurabi’s Law Code and Adoption (Part 3)

There are a number of other laws that are pertinent to this topic in Hammurabi’s code (these translations are also from Dr. Richardson’s book Hammurabi’s Laws):

#168 “If a man has come to the decision to dispossess his son and he has stated before judges, ‘I will dispossess my son,’ the judges shall make the decisions about his affairs and the father shall not dispossess his son from his inheritance unless the son has committed an offence serious enough to be disinherited.”

#169 “If he has committed an offence against his father serious enough to be disinherited, on the first occasion they will turn a blind eye. If he has committed an offence for the second time the father shall disinherit his son.”


Note that neither of these laws specifically deals with adopted sons. As far as we can tell from the texts, these laws apply to all sons, natural born and adopted. They provide a way to disinherit a son who has done something very wrong, but even then, his first offence shall be forgiven (#169).

Children could not easily disown their parents. Hammurabi Code #192 – 193 deal with the punishment a son could expect for trying to disown his parents:

#192 “If the son of an official or the son of a priestess has said to the father who brought him up, ‘You are not my father. You are not my mother,’ they shall cut out his tongue.

#193 “If the son of an official or the son of a priestess declares he knows his father’s house, and he hates the father and the mother who have brought him up, and he has gone away to his father’s house, they shall pull out his eye.”

Law #193 clearly is intended to mean that the son has left his adopted father’s house and returned to the house of his biological father. Law #193 does not seem to make a distinction between an adopted child and a biological son.