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Detention as Liminal Space During the Middle Babylonian Period

  • John Nicholas Reid EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: January 3, 2025

Abstract

This paper considers detention for the Middle Babylonian period (ca. 1595–1155 BC). Detention was utilized as part of the judicial process and to control labor. The idea that detention can be viewed as liminal space is established by using literary texts. The concept of liminality is then applied to various legal and administrative documents to demonstrate that detention did not entail the creation of a new status. Instead, persons of a variety of statuses could be detained temporarily. During this time, the normal social and legal rights of a person could be suspended until resolution occurred.


Corresponding author: John Nicholas Reid, Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, Oviedo, FL 32765, USA; and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, New York 10028, NY, USA, E-mail:
Abbreviations follow the CDLI (https://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/abbreviations_for_assyriology). I would like to thank Susanne Paulus, who read an earlier version of this paper and provided invaluable feedback. I would also like to thank the reviewers who were diligent in their work. Finally, I wish to thank Vitali Bartash and Andrew Pottorf for their editorial assistance and for including this paper in this volume.

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Received: 2024-06-17
Accepted: 2024-11-21
Published Online: 2025-01-03
Published in Print: 2025-05-26

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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