FOUR MIDDLE-BABYLONIAN LEGAL DOCUMENTS CONCERNING PRISON

Abstract

The modern concept of prison as a place of rehabilitation and/or a punitive measure was foreign to Ancient Near East. Given the numerous sources that mention prisons, prisoners, and prison officials, it is clear that incarceration was not abnormal in Babylonia. The four Middle-Babylonian texts published in part I deal with the release of prisoners, and part II examines the practice, context and the functions of public imprisonment in the Middle-Babylonian period.