Hammurabi’s Law Code and Adoption (Part 2)

Several things should be noted about the laws quoted in the previous blog entry:

1) All of these laws refer to a male child being adopted. We know from adoption contracts (more about this later) that girls were also adopted, but the Hammurabi’s Law Code only discusses male adoptees.
2) Law #186 shows that there was a period of time after an adoption during which the biological parents could reclaim the adopted child, but law #185 shows that that period of time was limited.
3) Palace officials (eunichs?) and priestesses could not have a child that they had adopted be reclaimed by the biological parents. Perhaps this was designed to protect palace officials who could not have children by allowing them to adopt children who would care for them in their old age.
4) If a craftsman taught an adoptee his trade, he could not have his adopted son be reclaimed. This would allow a craftsman to be certain that the time and effort he put into teaching the child a trade, would be rewarded by his (the craftsman) having a son who could take over the family business. The craftsman could, however, have the adopted son be reclaimed if he did not teach the child a trade. This is perhaps a protection for the child, to help ensure that the adoptive father would properly raise him.

Hammurabi's Law Code and Adoption

When dealing with family matters in the Old Babylonian Period, it is reasonable to see what Hammurabi’s law code has to say on the matter. “Laws” 185 – 191 contain relevant information. The translation I am giving here comes from Hammuarabi’s Laws by M. E. J. Richardson (see my review of the book).

#185 “If a man has taken in a tiny child at birth as a son and has brought him up, that ward shall not be reclaimed”

#186 “If a man has taken in a tiny child as a son, and then soon after he has taken him in his father and mother search him out, that adopted child shall return to his father’s house”.

#187 “The son of an official with a position in the palace and the son of a priestess shall not be reclaimed”.

#188 “If a professional craftsman has taken in a child as a ward and instructed him in manual skills, he shall not be reclaimed”.

#189 “If he has not instructed him in manual skills, that ward shall return to his father’s house”.

#190 If a man has not counted together with his own sons, the child whom he has taken in as a son and whom he has brought up, that ward shall return to his father’s house”.

#191 “If a man has established his house after taking in a son as a child and bringing him up, and then has his own children and reaches a decision to expel the ward, that child shall not go away empty handed.

The father who brought him up shall give him as his inheritance one-third of his wealth and then he shall go away.

He shall not give him any field, orchard or house”.

Old Babylonian Adoption

It has been a bit crazy at work recently, so I have not had time to blog, but I have put out all the fires (for now) and can get back to this website.

A while back, my wife and I investigated the possibility of adopting, but we ultimately were unable to. The experience got me interested in adoption in the ancient Near East. So I have decided to devote some time to the subject.

I have translated some adoption contracts from the Old Babylonian Period and will post them here and then put together an overview of what I have found. I will also include discussion of contracts translated by others. Most of the contracts are simply slight variations of each other and will not contain many surprises after you have read a few of them.

The Seventeenth Dynasty (Part 12)

Nebkheperre Intef was almost certainly succeeded by Sekhemre Wepmaat Rahotep. Nekheperre had a wife named Sobekemsaf and Rahotep had a mother named Sobekemsaf, which probably means that Rahotep was Nebkehheperre’s son (Beckerath, p. 196) and these two Kings can be fit into the Turin Canon in spots one and two or in spots eleven and twelve. If Winlock is correct in his belief that the Kings of Dynasty Seventeen are listed on the Abbott Papyrus in the inverse order of their reigns (Beckerath, p. 195), then Nebkheperre and Rahotep cannot be Kings eleven and twelve as Sekhemre Shedtowi Sobekemsaf would then be out of order on the Abbott Papyrus. Placing Nekhepere and Rahotep in spots one and two solves this problem however. Furthermore, a stela of Queen Sobekemsaf was found at Edfu in the same workshop as stelae dating to the last years of the Thirteenth Dynasty (Beckerath, p. 171). This suggests that her husband should be placed as early in Dynasty Seventeen as possible. Since Nebkheperre cannot be placed in the second through tenth spots on the Turin Canon (his name does not fit in the surviving fragments of the papyrus in these places) he must be the first King of the Dynasty. The second King must have a name starting with Sekhemre and Sekhemre Wepmaat Rahotep fits this criteria.

This leaves three open spots on the Turin Canon. Since Sekhemre Herhermaat Intef is known to have buried Sekhemre Wepmaat Intef these two kings must be placed next to one another on the Turin Canon. If the previous arguments are accepted, then the only place this can be done is in spots eleven and twelve. It should be pointed out that these places on the Canon require that the King’s names have a “-re” in them, and that both of the Intef’s fit this requirement. The only remaining king, Sekhemre Wadjkau Sobekemsaf, must be the third king of the dynasty. This fits with the remaining fragments of the Canon, which require a royal name in this place that contains “Sekhemre”.

Thus it can be seen that the order of the kings given in previous posts to this blog fits all the available evidence.

The Seventeenth Dynasty (Part 11)

The remnants of the Turin Canon, when combined with the archaeological evidence presented in the previous section, can be used to make a reasonable ordering of the Pharaohs of Dynasty Seventeen possible. The Turin Canon gives the following information (Beckerath, Jurgen von, Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der zweiten Zwischenzeit in Aegypten (Gluckstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1964), p. 195):

King --------------------------------------------------- Length of Reign
[…] ---------------------------------------------------- […]
Sekhemre […] --------------------------------------- 3 years
Sekhemre […] --------------------------------------- 16 years
Sekhemre Se[mentowi] (Thiuty) ------------------ 1 year
Seankhenre (Mentuhotep) ------------------------- 1 year
Ra-Nebereraw (I) ----------------------------------- 19 years
Ra-Nebereraw (II) ---------------------------------- 5 months
Semenenre ------------------------------------------ […]
Sewoserenre ---------------------------------------- 12 years
Sekhemre Shedweset (= Shedtowi) --------------- […]
[…]re ------------------------------------------------- […]
[…]re ------------------------------------------------- […]
[…] --------------------------------------------------- […]
[…] --------------------------------------------------- […]
[…] --------------------------------------------------- […]

[sum]: Kings [1]5 they reigned […]

The gaps in the papyrus (represented above by […]) complicate matters, but by carefully adding the archaeological evidence to this foundation we can produce a reconstruction of the period which fits the available evidence quite well.

First, it is known for certain that the last two Kings of the dynasty were Sekenenre Ta’o and Kamose. The thirteenth king is almost certainly Senakhtenre Ta’o. Senakhtenre is listed on the Karnak King-List between Nebkheperre Intef and Sekenenre and is listed as an ancestor of Ahmose (along with Sekenenre and Kamose) on the offering table of Ken. Hayes suggests that the thirteenth King of the dynasty was Sekenenre I and fourteenth was Sekenenre II (Hayes, William, “Egypt: from the Death of Amenemesses II to Seqenenre II,” in Cambridge Ancient History vol. 2, pt. 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 819). Hayes got this idea from the Abbott Papyrus which lists pyramids for two separate rulers named Sekenenre Ta’o (Breasted, James, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. 4, (New York: Russel & Russell, 1962), p. 256). This is wrong however. All modern Egyptologists prefer to emend the papyrus to make the first of these two Kings Senakhtenre Ta’o (Beckerath, p. 195). Even the ancient scribe who wrote the Abbott Papyrus was unsure of the validity of listing two Sekenenres as he added “…the second King Ta’o…” to his mention of the second pyramid. Note that the scribe said that there were two Ta’os, not two Sekenenre Ta’os. It seems far better to make the first King on the Abbot Papyrus Senakhtenre Ta’o rather than an otherwise unknown Sekenenre I. Furthermore, the bottom line of the Turin Canon states that there were []5 kings in Dynasty Seventeen. If there were two Sekenenres this would make the dynasty total sixteen Kings, without the second Sekenenre the gap in the papyrus can be restored as fifteen.

The Seventeenth Dynasty (Part 10)

At this point I have recounted the history of the Sevententh Dynasty as best as can be done with the available evidence. However, if you read any of the the Egyptological literature on this topic, you will probably find that few, if any, other writers have reached the same conclusions that I have. For instance, other researchers will no doubt place the kings in a different order than I have.

Given this, I think it only fair that I justify what I have written by explaining the reasons I reached these conclusions. So, in my next few posts, I will do exactly that.

The Seventeenth Dynasty (Part 9)

Kamose was not fated to finish the job of expelling the hated Asiatics. With the accession of Kamose’s younger brother, Ahmose, we come to the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the New Kingdom. As Ahmose is the first King of Dynasty Eighteen, his reign is, strictly speaking, not a part of the period covered by this paper. This section cannot close however, without a brief mention of the final sack of Avaris.

Helck places this event in year ten of Ahmose’s reign while Redford places it in year fifteen (Vandersleyn, pp. 33 – 4). Vandersleyn points out that the Rhind Papyrus bears two dates, year thirty-three of Apopis, and year eleven of an unknown King. He then reasonably argues that this unknown King is Ahmose, rather than Khamudy (the last of the Hyksos Kings) and uses this to support his argument that the sack of Avaris took place no earlier than year eleven of Ahmose (Vandersleyn, pp. 33 – 4). The actual sack of Avaris does not seem to have been accomplished smoothly. The biography of Ahmose Son of Ebana records two battles at Avaris, with a battle south of Avaris between them, once again indicating that some Egyptians remained loyal to the Hyksos (Lichtheim, Miriam, Ancient Egyptian Literature vol. 2 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 12).