Priests of Ur in the Old Babylonian Period: a Reappraisal in Light of the 2017 Discoveries at Ur/Tell Muqayyar

Abstract

Thirty-two years after the publication of Le Clergé d’Ur au siècle d’Hammurabi (1986), a reappraisal of the situation is made possible by collations of already known texts, and by new tablets provided by the resumption of excavations on the site of Tell Muqayyer. The question of the estate properties within the city of Ur will first be examined: generally, the members of the clergy owned the houses they inhabited, which were not the property of the temple of the Moon-god Nanna. Then the evidence about the specific situation of the purification priests devoted to the god Enki-of-Eridu will be studied: the older data are supplemented by new ones discovered in 2017 in a house occupied by a Babylonian general. Finally, the level of literacy of the clergy and the role they played in education will be examined; here again, the 2017 season provides new evidence thanks to the discovery of a house inhabited by an intendant of the temple of the goddess Ningal.