The house of Murashu were a family of businessmen and moneylenders based at Nippur in Babylonia in the fifth century BCE.is a secondary reference retrieved 2012-07-31 showing a view from a ziggurat in Nippur on page 17 of Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History by N Postgate 1994 (Reader in Mesopotamian Studies at the University of Cambridge and fellow of the British Academy) They left an archive of hundreds of cuneiform texts called the Murashu Archive which is often used to understand business and society in the Achaemenid Empire.
Family name Both Murašû and Murashu mean wild cat. The words are transliterated from mu-ra-šu-ú, as originally written in syllabic cuneiform script. The house is named after the head of the family.MW Stopler referenced 24. in DI Block & Daniel Bodi - The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra - Saint-Paul publishing, 1991 Retrieved 2012-07-28K Moore, D Lewis - The Origins of Globalization - Taylor & Francis, 16 Apr 2009 Retrieved 2012-07-28B Sass, J Marzahn - Aramaic and Figural Stamp Impressions on Bricks of the Sixth Century B.C. from Babylon Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2010 Retrieved 2012-07-28M Coogan - The Biblical Archaeologist Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1974), pp. 6-12 Retrieved 2012-07-28
Known species of wildcat of the ancient near east are Felis silvestris lybica.
Evidence of archaeology A large proportion of archaeological evidence on the family is from a house in Nippur, found within the remains of a twenty by ten foot room of the building. It was initially found during 1893 within the third expedition of the University of Pennsylvania at the site, at the time directed by John Henry Haynes. Known as the Murashu archive, these consist of clay tablets, 879 in total (numbering 879 during 2005 Provan, Long, Longman; 835 during 2001 Greenfield, Paul, Stone, Pinnick; 800 during 1999 Mieroop; and 650 during 1995 in Schramm) written in the languages Aramaic and Akkadian. The archive includes 657 different seal types (Bregstein).JC Greenfield, SM Paul, ME Stone (Gail Levin de Nur, A Pinnick - ʻAl Kanfei Yonah: Collected Studies of Jonas C. Greenfield on Semitic Philology, Volume 1 BRILL, 1 Sep 2001 Retrieved 2012-07-28"1893" originally sourced at EC Erickson - Retrieved 2012-07-30LB Bregstein - repository AAI9413807 - upenn - Retrieved 2012-07-30library.upenn Retrieved 2012-07-30(secondary) [R Silverberg ed.] - Great Adventures in Archaeology, page 164, University of Nebraska Press, 28 July 1997. . Retrieved 2012-07-30DI Block - The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 - Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1997 Retrieved 2012-07-28("clay") G Leick - The Babylonian world (page 120) Routledge 2007 Retrieved 2012-07-28IW Provan, VP Long, T Longman (Robert H. Gundry - A Biblical History of Israel - Westminster John Knox Press, 2003 Retrieved 2012-07-28 WM Schniedewind - How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel Cambridge University Press, 2005 Retrieved 2012-07-28LB Bregstein, University of Pennsylvania(secondary) A Kuhrt - page showing a drawing and description (P Briant) of a seal Routledge, 2007 - Retrieved 2012-07-29
Murashu tablets The Murashu tablets provide a glimpse into what life was like for fifth-century Jewish descendants of the Babylonian Exile and captivity. After the Persian king Cyrus the Great captured Babylon in 539 BCE, he allowed and helped finance the return of Jews to Judea with the Edict of Cyrus in 538. The Murashu tablets are dated to this period after Jews were allowed to return to Judea. The fact that the banking house "Murashu & Sons" conducted business with Jews who decided to remain in Nippur rather than return to Judea suggests that life in Persian-controlled Nippur was at least somewhat tolerable for Jews.
The tablets discuss one such Jew, Udarna, son of Rahim-ili. Some of Udarna's property was stolen by his brother and nephew. To see that he might reacquire his property, Udarna brought his complaint to Bel-nadin-shumu, one of the sons of "Murashu & Sons." Udarna did have his property returned. In addition, no charges were brought against his brother or nephew. They also agreed that no offspring of Udarna would ever bring charges against Udarna's brother or nephew or their offspring. This act of forbidding any suit being brought against Udarna's brother and nephew or the generations after, was seemingly implemented to prevent a blood feud that might last generations.
Notably the Hebrew names contained within the tablets which begin with יהו (Yod Heh Waw) are all written “Yahu-” and never “Yeho”. This evidence from the Murashu documents thus corresponds to that from other sources: after the Exile the ordinary form of the divine name used as an initial theophorous element was yahu.
Banking HV Hilprecht considers the group ("firm") to be bankers and brokers, who were engaged in money-lending and trading operations in southern and central Babylonia for a period of 50 years from the end of the 5th century (Dandamaev, Lukonin, Kohl).
Three generations of the family are attested to in the Nippur documents. The archives ("legal" documentation) include matters concerning the less wealthy of Nippur living in the outer areas of the city, although also the interests of both royalty (the renting of fields - Dandamaev, Lukonin, Kohl) and those associated with these, participating as officials within their estate. The artifacts are dated to the time of the reign of the kings Artaxerxes I and Darius II, (otherwise dated 465, 464 or 455 to 404 or 403 BCE).MA Sweeney, DW Cotter, JT Walsh, C Franke - The Twelve Prophets: Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Volume 2 - Liturgical Press, 2000 Retrieved 2012-07-282nd - WM SchniedewindJP Nielsen - Sons and Descendants: A Social History of Kin Groups and Family Names in the Early Neo-Babylonian Period - ProQuest, 2008 Retrieved 2012-07-29Lewis & Boardman page 251"equerry" -cambridge dictionary.orgO Lipschitz, M Oeming - Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period - Eisenbrauns, 2006 Retrieved 2012-07-28M Van De Mieroop - Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History Routledge, 8 July 1999 Retrieved 2012-07-28SE Alcock p.94B Schramm - The Opponents of Third Isaiah: Reconstructing the Cultic History of the Restoration Continuum International Publishing Group, 1995 Retrieved 2012-07-28
The core activity of the family was fief and estate land management, with members primarily active as creditors for workers of agricultural enterprises, in the lending and provision of equipment, seed, tools, irrigation and animals for this purpose, to individuals including Jews, these relevant as to the book of Ezekiel. The archive gives information on interaction and agreement and the like with 100 Jewish families. The family employed more than 60 agents. The house leased plots of land owned by civil servants (23 high court officials) and warriors (bow-lands, horse-lands and chariot lands) transferring rental payments and also subsequent taxes to the royal family. The government used the family for the purposes of the collection of tax on land (harāka [OP]) (the family "farmed out" taxes). The family had dealings with 2500 separate individuals, at least as evidenced by the archive document when Schniedewind states this includes in total an "...onomasticon of some 2500 names...".MieroopE Yamouchi (MW Chavalas) - Mesopotamia and the Bible Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004 Retrieved 2012-07-28Davies, Finkelstein p.337LM Wills - The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World - Cornell University Press, 1995 Retrieved 2012-07-28A Mein - Ezekiel And the Ethics of Exile - Oxford University Press, 23 Feb 2006 Retrieved 2012-07-28M Price May 12, 2000 this is presumed a fact from the 13th paragraph stating - " ... In the fifth century BC, in Nippur documents, 100 such Jewish families are identified ... "M Price - A brief history of Iranian Jews iranonline Retrieved 2012-07-31SE Alcock - Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History Cambridge University Press, 2001 Retrieved 2012-07-28DM Lewis, J Boardman - The Cambridge Ancient History: The Fourth Century B.C. Cambridge University Press, 1994 Retrieved 2012-07-28A Farazmand - Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration (Volume 94 of Public Administration and Public Policy) - CRC Press, 29 Jun 2001 Retrieved 2012-07-29(secondary) MP Maidman - Nuzi Texts and Their Uses As Historical Evidence - Society of Biblical Lit, 2010 Retrieved 2012-07-29HWM van de Sandt - Matthew and the Didache: Two Documents from the Same Jewish-Christian Milieu? - Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, 2005 Retrieved 2012-07-29R Bieringer - The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (Volume 136 of Journal for the study of Judaism / Supplements) Brill, 2010 Retrieved 2012-07-29(secondary) I Gershevitch - The Cambridge History of Iran: The Median and Achaemenian periods Cambridge University Press, 1985 Retrieved 2012-07-29IP Loken - Ezra - Xulon Press, 2007 Retrieved 2012-07-28J Blenkinsopp (John A. O'Brien - Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary Westminster John Knox Press, 1988 Retrieved 2012-07-28WM Schniedewind - Society and the Promise to David:The Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1-17: The Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1-17 Oxford University Press, 1999 Retrieved 2012-07-31
The family's activities were centred on Lower Mesopotamia and did not involve trade with distant regions. Family members sometimes travelled to the Achaemenid capital at Susa (in Elam, about 200 kilometres distant) where they remained for months involved in financial and legal businesses.PL Kessler - historyfiles Retrieved 2012-07-31DT Potts citing Stolper; Joannés and Dandamaev - The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State Cambridge University Press, 1999 Retrieved 2012-07-29MB Garrison, M Cool Root, CE Jones -Seals on the Persepolis fortification tablets: Volume 1, Part 1 - Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, 2001 MB Garrison, M Cool Root - Persepolis seal studies: an introduction with provisional concordances of seal numbers and associated documents on fortification tablets 1-2087 Retrieved 2012-07-29 Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1996 & S Kurinsky - The eighth day: the hidden history of the Jewish contribution to civilization Jason Aronson, 1994 "Susa the gateway to India" - Retrieved 2012-07-29(secondary) W Horowitz - Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography Eisenbrauns, 1998 - Retrieved 2012-07-31 Their activities skirted the edge of the law, as when they obtained the exclusive right to use land which they were not allowed to buy, but also helped people pay their taxes and provide service as conscripts, and it appears that their business was eventually shut down or restructured by the king's officials, causing someone to put away the texts which now form the Murashu archives.Johannes 2020
References
Original sources JA Thompson - The Bible and archaeology Paternoster Press, 1973 Retrieved 2012-07-10 S Moshenskyi - History of the Weksel Sergei Moshenskyi, 1 Aug 2008 Retrieved 2012-07-10 KR Nemet-Nejat - Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998 Retrieved 2012-07-10
secondary JJ Collins, PW Flint - The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, Volume 1 BRILL, 2001 Retrieved 2012-07-28 M.Dandameyev - [L Finkelstein, WD Davies eds.]- The Cambridge History of Judaism: Introduction; The Persian period Cambridge University Press, 16 Feb 1984 Retrieved 2012-07-28
Cardascia, G. 1951, Les Archives des Murašû. Une famille d’hommes d’affaires babyloniens à l’époque perse (455-403 av. J.-C.). Imprimerie Nationale, Paris. Stolper, M. W. 1985, Entrepreneurs and Empire. The Murašû Archive, the Murašû Firm, and Persian Rule in Babylonia, PIHANS 54, NINO, Leiden. Francis Joannès, "La fin de Rēmūt-Ninurta, chef de la maison Murašû," Arta 2020.003 http://www.achemenet.com/pdf/arta/ARTA_2020.003_Joannès.pdf
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