The Al-Yahudu tablets are a collection of about 200 clay tablets from the sixth and fifth centuries BCE on the exiled Judean community in Babylonia following the destruction of the First Temple. [1] [2] [3] They contain information on the physical condition of the exiles from Judah and their financial condition in Babylon. [4] The tablets are named after the central settlement mentioned in the documents, āl Yahudu (Akkadian "The town of Judah"), which was "presumably in the vicinity of Borsippa". [5]
The earliest document in the collection dates back to 572 BCE, about 15 years after the destruction of the Temple, during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. [6] The most recent tablet dates back to 477 BCE, during the reign of Xerxes I, about 60 years after the Return to Zion began and about 20 years before the rise of Ezra the Scribe.
The public records do not contain information on the location and date of the discovery of the documents in Iraq, and it seems that they were not found in an archaeological excavation. The first time the public was exposed to the documents and the settlement of al-Yahudu was in an article by two French researchers in 1999, which dealt with three legal documents of Jews in Babylon, including the city of al-Yahudu itself. These three certificates were part of a small collection of six documents in the possession of Israeli antiquities collector Shlomo Moussaieff.
At the beginning of the 21st century, it turned out that this was not a small collection, but a collection of more than 200 documents, most of which were in two other private collections. Some of the documents were presented in 2004 at ANU – Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv and were investigated in part by Kathleen Abraham of Bar-Ilan University. Since then, the entire collection has been investigated mainly by two researchers, Cornelia Wunsch of Germany and Laurie Pearce of the United States. After a series of papers on documentary issues, Wunsch and Pierce published in early 2015 and 2022 the first full translations and analysis of the collection in a series of two books. [4] [7]
The location and circumstances of the discovery of the documents have not been published. However, the location of the communities mentioned in the documents, where exiled Jews settled, can be traced based on clues found in the documents' contents. The assessment is based on two main components:
Based on this, researchers estimate that al-Yahudu and the other communities mentioned in the documents are located in the area southeast of the city of Nippur. [4]
Beyond the settlement of al-Yahudu, other settlements were mentioned where Jews were living or working. Some of them are well-known cities and some were apparently satellite settlements of al-Yahudu. The main localities mentioned in the documents are:
The collection also contains documents from the cities of Babylon, Nippur, Borsippa, and even a document signed on the banks of the Kebar River, known in the bible as the site of the Exile and known from the Babylonian records as an irrigation canal which was also used as a transportation channel for commerce and movement of people. The collection contained no references to other biblical-known cities in which the Babylonian exiles resided. [4]
The al-Yahudu tablets cover a period of 100 years under Babylonian rule, especially Persian. In general, the documents show a similarity between the life of the Jews and other exiles in the kingdom at the time. In principle, it can be said that the documents attest to the tension between the preservation of Jewish identity, language, culture and religion and the need, and sometimes the will, to integrate into life in Babylon. In this respect, life in Babylon corresponds to the instruction of the prophet Jeremiah in a letter he sent from Judah to the Babylonian exiles following the exile of Jeconiah in 597 BCE (Jeremiah 29:5–6).
According to the documents, the Jews were defined as "Shushanu". This status is also known from other documents from the period and relates to foreign exiles who were exiled to Babylon, mainly in order to rehabilitate cities and areas devastated by past wars. These exiles received land lease for their livelihood in the form of service in exchange for land. Although they can be compared to the status of land-bound tenants, they seem to have enjoyed freedom of movement, they were defined as independent entities before the Babylonian and Persian law and enjoyed the possibilities of social and economic integration.
The type of service required of the exiles is mentioned in the documents, both in the context of the designation of the leasehold lands and directly in the jobs that the exiles were required to perform as part of the payment of taxes. Based on other documents dealing with payment of tax and service to the kingdom after their settlement, it seems that other exiles were employed in physical labor. These included construction work, excavation and maintenance of irrigation channels. It is possible that among these were many of the "plow and locksmith", mentioned in connection with the exile of Jeconiah in 597 BCE. The nature of the service described also appears to indicate a restriction imposed on them in their movement, and to a certain extent may have been in this period a status similar to that of a slave. This period may be reflected in the famous lines of Psalm 137 on the exile.
Most of the Jews on the certificates made their living from agriculture. Most of the land they leased grew dates and barley, but wheat, spices and linen were also mentioned in the documents. Analysis of the money amounts in the transactions appearing in the certificates shows that they had a low economic status relative to the kingdom. A comparison of the economic agreements from other collections in Babylon indicates the integration of the Jews into the economic life of Babylon, and it seems that they operated on the daily economic level, like other Babylonians, and not necessarily according to the laws of the Torah. [8]
Among the exiles, there are documents of a number of Jews of strong economic standing. Some (such as Raphaiah Ben Smachiho and his son) acted as intermediaries and credit providers to the Jewish population and managed to accumulate substantial capital. These intermediaries provided pure silver coins to concentrate tax payments of various Jews and provided farmers with means of production, such as plowing animals and grain.
Due to the nature of the documents, this subject appears only implicitly. The preservation of Jewish identity can be seen in the sequence of names given to family members for at least four generations, the fact that no documents were found on Jewish holidays, and that dates were not signed on Shabbat.
The documents do not show signs of people leaving for Judea, but at least two Jews have been found who had a desire to return to Zion:[ citation needed ]
The Al-Yahudu Tablets provide among the first Babylonian transcriptions of Israelite names. Earlier, the Assyrians, whom the Babylonians had usurped, had made several inscriptions which featured names of Israelite or Judahite provenance, including Omri, [9] Hezekiah, [10] Pekah and Hoshea, [11] Jehoiachin, [12] and Yahu-Bihdi. [13] In particular, the common Hebrew theophoric elements Yah- and -yahu are variously transliterated as ya-ma and ya-ḫu, instead of the historic Assyrian form ya-ú. [14]
The history of ancient Israel and Judah spans from the early appearance of the Israelites in Canaan's hill country during the late second millennium BCE, to the establishment and subsequent downfall of the two Israelite kingdoms in the mid-first millennium BCE. This history unfolds within the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. The earliest documented mention of "Israel" as a people appears on the Merneptah Stele, an ancient Egyptian inscription dating back to around 1208 BCE. Archaeological evidence suggests that ancient Israelite culture evolved from the pre-existing Canaanite civilization. During the Iron Age II period, two Israelite kingdoms emerged, covering much of Canaan: the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south.
The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries. Jews are named after Judah, and primarily descend from people who lived in the region.
The Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group consisting of tribes that inhabited much of Canaan during the Iron Age.
The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred in multiple waves: After the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BCE, around 7,000 individuals were deported to Mesopotamia. Further deportations followed the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple in 587 BCE.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the tribe of Judah was one of the twelve Tribes of Israel, named after Judah, the son of Jacob. Judah was the first tribe to take its place in the Land of Israel, occupying its Southern part. Jesse and his sons, including King David, belonged to this tribe.
Sippar was an ancient Near Eastern Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates river. Its tell is located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah near Yusufiyah in Iraq's Baghdad Governorate, some 69 km (43 mi) north of Babylon and 30 km (19 mi) southwest of Baghdad. The city's ancient name, Sippar, could also refer to its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum ; a more specific designation for the city here referred to as Sippar was Sippar-Yaḫrurum (Sippar-Jaḫrurum). The name comes from the Amorite Yaḫrurum tribe that lived in the area along with the Amorite Amnanum tribe. In Sippar was the site where the Babylonian Map of the World was found.
The Kassites were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC.
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures.
Jeconiah, also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin, was the nineteenth and penultimate king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BCE and was taken into captivity. He was the son and successor of King Jehoiakim, and the grandson of King Josiah. Most of what is known about Jeconiah is found in the Hebrew Bible. Records of Jeconiah's existence have been found in Iraq, such as the Jehoiachin's Rations Tablets. These tablets were excavated near the Ishtar Gate in Babylon and have been dated to c. 592 BCE. Written in cuneiform, they mention Jeconiah and his five sons as recipients of food rations in Babylon.
Amel-Marduk, also known as Awil-Marduk, or under the biblical rendition of his name, Evil-Merodach, was the third emperor of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 562 BCE until his overthrow and murder in 560 BCE. He was the successor of Nebuchadnezzar II. On account of the small number of surviving cuneiform sources, little is known of Amel-Marduk's reign and actions as king.
The Nabonidus Chronicle is an ancient Babylonian text, part of a larger series of Babylonian Chronicles inscribed in cuneiform script on clay tablets. It deals primarily with the reign of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, covers the conquest of Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, and ends with the start of the reign of Cyrus's son Cambyses II, spanning a period from 556 BC to some time after 539 BC. It provides a rare contemporary account of Cyrus's rise to power and is the main source of information on this period; Amélie Kuhrt describes it as "the most reliable and sober [ancient] account of the fall of Babylon."
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia until Faisal II in the 20th century. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and being firmly established through the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 539 BC, marking the collapse of the Chaldean dynasty less than a century after its founding.
The Battle of Opis was the last major military engagement between the Achaemenid Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which took place in September 539 BC, during the Persian invasion of Mesopotamia. At the time, Babylonia was the last major power in Western Asia that was not yet under Persian control. The battle was fought in or near the strategic riverside city of Opis, located north of the capital city of Babylon in modern-day Iraq, and resulted in a decisive victory for Persia. Shortly afterwards, the Babylonian city of Sippar surrendered to Persian forces, who then supposedly entered Babylon without facing any further resistance. The Persian king Cyrus the Great was subsequently proclaimed as the king of Babylonia and its subject territories, thus ending its independence and incorporating the entirety of the fallen Neo-Babylonian Empire into the greater Achaemenid Empire.
The return to Zion is an event recorded in Ezra–Nehemiah of the Hebrew Bible, in which the Jews of the Kingdom of Judah—subjugated by the Neo-Babylonian Empire—were freed from the Babylonian captivity following the Persian conquest of Babylon. In 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great issued the Edict of Cyrus allowing the Jews to return to Jerusalem and the Land of Judah, which was made a self-governing Jewish province under the new Persian Empire.
Yehud Medinata, also called Yehud Medinta or simply Yehud, was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire. Located in Judea, the territory was distinctly Jewish, with the High Priest of Israel emerging as a central religious and political leader. It lasted for just over two centuries before being incorporated into the Hellenistic empires, which emerged following the Greek conquest of the Persian Empire.
Yehud was a province of the Neo-Babylonian Empire established in the former territories of the Kingdom of Judah, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in the aftermath of the Judahite revolts and the siege of Jerusalem in 587/6 BCE. It first existed as a Jewish administrative division under Gedaliah ben Aḥikam, who was later assassinated by a fellow Jew. The Fast of Gedaliah, a minor fast day in Judaism, was established in memory of this event, and is lamented by observant Jews even to this day.
The house of Murashu were a family of businessmen and moneylenders based at Nippur in Babylonia in the fifth century BCE. They left an archive of hundreds of cuneiform texts which is often used to understand business and society in the Achaemenid empire.
Judah's revolts against Babylon were attempts by the Kingdom of Judah to escape dominance by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Resulting in a Babylonian victory and the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah, it marked the beginning of the prolonged hiatus in Jewish self-rule in Judaea until the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE. Babylonian forces captured the capital city of Jerusalem and destroyed Solomon's Temple, completing the fall of Judah, an event which marked the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, a period in Jewish history in which a large number of Judeans were forcibly removed from Judah and resettled in Mesopotamia.
2 Kings 24 is the twenty-fourth chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE, with a supplement added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the events during the reigns of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Kings 25 is the twenty-fifth and final chapter of the second part of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the Second Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of recorded acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a Deuteronomic compiler in the seventh century BCE; a supplement was added in the sixth century BCE. This chapter records the events during the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, the fall of Jerusalem, the governorship of Gedaliah, and the release of Jehoiachin from prison in Babylon.