Babyloniaca, études de philologie assyro-babylonienne.

KOSCHAKER, S THEORY OF THE " OLD ASSYRIAN LAWS "

57

submitted, is not proved: for (l) the words in ~ 39 (38) 1. 24 sd.
ubluni can be rendered ' which he brought (to her father's house)'
equally well as ' which he took (to the bride)'; and (2), if tirltit
connoted a gift to the bride, what did tdcunnA, which bore that
sense according to ~ 171 of the Code of Hammurabi and ~ 28 (27) of
these laws, mean? It is highly improbable that they both meant
the same thing in one and the same collection of laws.
In ~ 33 (32), 1. 51 Koschaker (p. 59, n. 2) suggests that zudunnti
(masc.) is a gloss which has supplanted tirhitu (fen.) since the verb
tadnact (fer.) ' has been given ' requires a feminine subject. But this
plausible suggestion gives rise to more difficulties than it removes: for
(1), if the woman is the subject in the following, as in the preceding,
line, (a) it involves two harsh changes of subject, (b) it raises the
question as to why she is taken to her father-in-law's house, when
in 1. 50 she is stated to be living in her father's house and (c) it
makes it impossible to discover any sense in 1. 53 in the words a lai
lalkit ' or is not taken ' 2; (2), if the tirlitu ' the gift which the
bridegroom brings to the house of his father-in-law ' is the subject,
it need only be pointed out that that particular gift according to
~ 39 (38) 4 went to the house of the man's father-in-law (sc. the girl's
father), never to that of the girl's father-in-law. The proposal to
substitute tirtitu for mucunnit in this passage is therefore contrary
to legal principle. The only solution possible is to accept an error in
the congruence of verb and noun on the part of the compiler - certainly no unique phenomenon in these laws. 5 Nor is the spelling
of nudzunn as ntduntu against its genuineness, for the orthography
in these laws fluctuates to a remarkable degree. Now ~ 151 of the
1. Koschaker himself has seen (p. 59) and discussed (p. 62, n. 2) this difficulty.
2. Lewy's solution in Z. A., 36, p. 145, n. 9, is open to the same objection.
3. Cp. Code of Hammurabi, ~ 163, 11. 14-16.
4. Cp. Code of Hammurabi, ~ 156, 11. 14-16.
5. Similarly tupput tablet' (masc.) is construed with a feminine verb in ~ 29
(28), I. 5; but there is external evidence for the variation of gender in the case of
this word (cp. B. E. IV, 168, 57). Other errors occur in ~ 12, 1. 15, ~ 35 (34), 1. 71
and ~ 56 (54), 1. 24.