Nikolas Hesse
email: nikolas.hesse@iosb.fraunhofer.de

Sergi Pujades

Javier Romero

Michael J Black

Christoph Bodensteiner

Michael Arens

Ulrich G Hofmann

Uta Tacke

Mijna Hadders-Algra

Raphael Weinberger

Wolfgang Müller-Felber

A Sebastian Schroeder

Learning an Infant Body Model from RGB-D Data for Accurate Full Body Motion Analysis

Keywords: body models, data-driven, cerebral palsy, motion analysis, pose tracking, general movement assessment

Introduction

One of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children is cerebral palsy (CP), which is caused by abnormal development of, or damage to the brain. Symptoms vary, but often include spasticity, abnormal muscle tone or impaired motor skills. Early intervention seems to have a positive effect on cognitive and motor outcome [START_REF] Spittle | Early developmental intervention programmes provided post hospital discharge to prevent motor and cognitive impairment in preterm infants[END_REF], yet requires early diagnosis. Neurological examinations or technical assessment of brain functions show a large variation in predicting developmental outcome [START_REF] Hadders-Algra | General movements: a window for early identification of children at high risk for developmental disorders[END_REF], and reliable diagnoses are generally obtained between the age of one and two years [START_REF] Stahl | An optical flow-based method to predict infantile cerebral palsy[END_REF]. Prechtl discovered that the quality of spontaneous movements, in particular of the general movements (GMs), at the corrected age of 2-4 months accurately reflects the state of the infant's nervous system [START_REF] Prechtl | Qualitative changes of spontaneous movements in fetus and preterm infant are a marker of neurological dysfunction[END_REF]. As of today, the general movement assessment (GMA) method achieves the highest reliability for the diagnosis and prediction of CP at such an early age [START_REF] Marcroft | Movement recognition technology as a method of assessing spontaneous general movements in high risk infants[END_REF]. Trained experts, usually physicians, analyze video recordings of infants and rate the GM quality, ranging from normal optimal to definitely abnormal in a modified version of Prechtl's GMA [START_REF] Hadders-Algra | General movements: a window for early identification of children at high risk for developmental disorders[END_REF]. Infants with abnormal movement quality have very high risk of developing CP or minor neurological dysfunction [START_REF] Hadders-Algra | General movements: a window for early identification of children at high risk for developmental disorders[END_REF]. Despite being the most accurate clinical tool for early diagnosis, GMA requires a trained expert and suffers from human variability. These experts need regular practice and re-calibration to assure adequate ratings. This motivates the need for automated analysis. To allow GMA automation, a practical system must first demonstrate that it is capable of capturing the relevant information needed for GMA. Moreover, to allow its widespread use, the solution needs to be seamlessly integrated into the clinical routine. Ideally it should be low-cost, easy-to-setup, and easy-to-use, producing minimal overhead to the standard examination protocol, and not affect the behavior of the infants.

We present the first work on 3D shape and 3D pose estimation of infants, as well as the first work on learning a statistical 3D body model from lowquality, incomplete RGB-D data of freely moving humans. We contribute (i) a new statistical Skinned Multi-Infant Linear model (SMIL), learned from 37 RGB-D low-quality sequences of freely moving infants, and (ii) a method to register the SMIL model to the RGB-D sequences, capable of handling severe occlusions and fast movements. Quantitative experiments show how SMIL properly factorizes the pose and the shape of the infants, and allows the captured data to be accurately represented in a low-dimensional space. With a case-study involving a high-risk former preterm study population, we demonstrate that the amount of motion detail captured by SMIL is sufficient to enable accurate GMA ratings. Thus, SMIL provides a fundamental tool that can form a component in a fully automatic system for the assessment of GMs. We make SMIL available to the community for research purposes.

We review related work in the fields of medical analysis of infant motion and statistical body modeling.

An overview of existing approaches for automating and objectifying the task of GMA is presented in [START_REF] Marcroft | Movement recognition technology as a method of assessing spontaneous general movements in high risk infants[END_REF]. For automated analysis, accurately capturing the motions of freely moving infants is key and has been approached in different ways. Intrusive systems rely on markers captured by camera systems [START_REF] Meinecke | Movement analysis in the early detection of newborns at risk for developing spasticity due to infantile cerebral palsy[END_REF], or on sensors attached to the infant's limbs, like electro-magnetical sensors [START_REF] Karch | Quantification of the segmental kinematics of spontaneous infant movements[END_REF] or accelerometers [START_REF] Heinze | Movement analysis by accelerometry of newborns and infants for the early detection of movement disorders due to infantile cerebral palsy[END_REF]. These approaches are highly accurate, since measurement units are directly connected to the limbs. However, the sensors/markers affect the infant's behavior. In addition, the setup and calibration of such systems can be cumbersome, the hardware is often expensive and the acquisition pro- Fig. 1: Method overview. We acquire and preprocess RGB-D data. We create an initial infant model (SMPL B ) based on SMPL [START_REF] Loper | Smpl: A skinned multi-person linear model[END_REF]. We register SMPL B to the preprocessed data. We learn our new Skinned Multi-Infant Linear model (SMIL) consisting of a new shape space, and a new pose prior from the registrations. tocol requires time consuming human intervention. Non-intrusive systems rely on simple, low-cost video or depth cameras, which facilitates usage in a broad clinical environment. From raw RGB videos, different body parts are tracked using optical flow [START_REF] Stahl | An optical flow-based method to predict infantile cerebral palsy[END_REF] or weakly supervised motion segmentation techniques [START_REF] Rahmati | Weakly supervised motion segmentation with particle matching[END_REF]. RGB-D sensors allow capturing motion in all three dimensions, e.g. by estimating joint positions based on a random ferns body part classifier [START_REF] Hesse | Estimating body pose of infants in depth using random ferns[END_REF]. Most similar to our work, the authors in [START_REF] Olsen | Model-based motion tracking of infants[END_REF] fit a body model consisting of simplistic shapes to RGB-D data and compare their method to sparse manually annotated landmarks. Differently to [START_REF] Olsen | Model-based motion tracking of infants[END_REF], we (i) learn a realistic infant body model from data, (ii) resolve rotational ambiguities by capturing full body shape and pose instead of 3D joint positions, and (iii) evaluate our model with surface distances, accounting for both pose and shape accuracy.

Statistical body models aim to describe the surface of humans or animals in a low-dimensional space. These models rely on sparse [START_REF] Anguelov | Scape: Shape completion and animation of people[END_REF] or dense [START_REF] Loper | Smpl: A skinned multi-person linear model[END_REF] surface data captured from cooperative, easy-to-instruct subjects or 3D toy models [START_REF] Zuffi | 3D menagerie: Modeling the 3D shape and pose of animals[END_REF]. Infants present a major challenge in terms of data acquisition as they are not cooperative and cannot be instructed. Unlike previous work on human body models, we are not aware of a repository of high quality scans of infants, and thus, learn a 3D body model from RGB-D sequences of freely moving humans.

Learning the Infant Body Model

We create an initial infant model, SMPL B , by adapting SMPL [START_REF] Loper | Smpl: A skinned multi-person linear model[END_REF], and register it to the preprocessed data. Then, we learn our Skinned Multi-Infant Linear model (SMIL) from these registrations. The method overview is illustrated in Fig. 1. Manual intervention is only required in adjusting the pose priors (once for SMPL B , once for SMIL), initial template creation (once for SMPL B ), and defining the number of clothing parts for each sequence (preprocessing).

Data Acquisition. We record freely moving infants for 3 to 5 minutes on the examination table without external stimulation, using a Microsoft Kinect V1 RGB-D camera. Ethics approval was obtained from Ludwig Maximilian Uni-versity Munich (LMU) and all parents gave written informed consent for participation in this study.

Preprocessing. In the preprocessing step, we (i) transform depth images to 3D point clouds using the camera calibration, (ii) filter all table points not belonging to the infant by fitting a plane to the examination table, (iii) segment the infant point cloud into skin, diaper and onesie by adapting the segmentation method described in [START_REF] Pons-Moll | Clothcap: Seamless 4d clothing capture and retargeting[END_REF]. Finally, we (iv) extract landmarks from the RGB images, which provides us with 2D pose [START_REF] Cao | Realtime multi-person 2d pose estimation using part affinity fields[END_REF], hand locations [START_REF] Simon | Hand keypoint detection in single images using multiview bootstrapping[END_REF] and facial landmarks [START_REF] Wei | Convolutional pose machines[END_REF], with their respective confidence estimates.

Initial Model. Learning an infant shape space is a chicken-and-egg problem: a model is needed to register the data, and registrations are needed to learn a model. We manually create our initial model SMPL B , based on SMPL [START_REF] Loper | Smpl: A skinned multi-person linear model[END_REF], a statistical body model learned from thousands of adult 3D scans. Simply scaling the adult model to infant size does not provide satisfactory results, as body proportions severely differ. We (i) replace the SMPL mean shape with an infant body mesh created with MakeHuman [START_REF]MakeHuman: Open source tool for making 3d characters[END_REF], (ii) leave the SMPL shape space untouched, (iii) scale the pose blendshapes to infant size, and (iv) manually adjust the pose priors. Because pose priors were learned on standing adults and not lying infants, adjusting these manually is important to prevent the model from explaining shape deformations with pose parameters.

Registration. The SMPL B registrations to the preprocessed 3D point clouds are computed by minimizing the energy

E(β, θ) = E data + E lm + E sm + E sc + E table + E β + E θ , (1)
where E data measures the scan to registration mesh distance, E lm penalizes the distance between estimated and registration landmarks projected to 2D as in [START_REF] Bogo | Keep it SMPL: Automatic estimation of 3D human pose and shape from a single image[END_REF], E sm enforces temporal pose smoothness and E sc penalizes model self intersections as in [START_REF] Bogo | Keep it SMPL: Automatic estimation of 3D human pose and shape from a single image[END_REF]. E table integrates background information in order to keep the bottom side of the registration body close to, but not inside the table. E β and E θ are the shape and pose prior, that enforce the shape parameters to be close to the mean, and help to prevent unnatural poses, respectively. Initialization. Since the optimization problem is highly non-convex, the success of the registration depends on a good initialization. In contrast to adults, infants are incapable of striking poses on demand. Thus, relying on a predefined initial pose is unpractical. We overcome this by proposing a novel automatic method to select an initialization frame. We assume that a body segment is most visible if it has maximum 2D length over the sequence, since perspective projection decreases 2D body segment length. We choose the initialization frame as f init = argmax f s∈S len(s, f ) * c(s, f ), where S is the set of segments, len(s, f ) is the 2D length of the segment s at frame f , and c(s, f ) is the estimated confidence of the joints belonging to s at frame f . For f init we compute the initial registration by optimizing a simplified version of Eq. 1. It contains a 2D body pose landmark term similar to E lm , a simplified data term, a strong prior on pose, and a shape regularizer. From f init , we sequentially process the neighbouring frames (forward and backward in time), using as initialization the shape and pose results of the last processed frame. Personalized Shape. For each sequence, we "unpose" the point clouds of a randomly selected subset of 1000 frames, similarly to [START_REF] Bogo | Detailed full-body reconstructions of moving people from monocular rgb-d sequences[END_REF]. The process of unposing changes the pose of the model into a normalized pose, which removes the variance related to body articulation. Because large parts of the infants' backs are never visible, we add model vertices that belong to faces oriented away from the camera, and call them virtual points. The union of the unposed scan points and the virtual points is the fusion scan. We register the model to the fusion scan by first optimizing only shape parameters and then optimizing for the free surface to best explain the fusion scan, by coupling the free surface to the first computed shape.

SMIL. To learn our Skinned Multi-Linear Infant model, we compute a new infant-specific shape space by doing weighted PCA on all 37 personalized shapes. We use low weights for points labeled as clothing and high weights for skin points, with smooth transitions in between, to avoid including diapers and clothing wrinkles in the shape space. We retain the first 20 shape components. In order to avoid repeated poses due to the lack of motion (sequences have between 4K and 10K frames), we randomly sample 1000 poses per sequence and learn the pose prior from 37K poses. As the learned prior does not penalize illegal poses (e.g. unnatural bending of knees) we manually add penalties to avoid them. Our SMIL model is composed of the shape space, the pose prior, and a base template, which is the mean of all personalized shapes.

Experiments

We evaluate SMIL quantitatively with respect to SMPL B and perform a casestudy on GMA ratings to demonstrate that SMIL captures enough information for medical assessment. Our dataset consists of 37 recordings of infants from a tertiary care high risk infants outpatient clinic, with an overall duration of over two hours. The infants' ages range from 9 to 18 weeks of corrected age (avg. of 14.6 weeks), their size range is 42 to 59 cm (avg. of 53.5 cm). We evaluate the SMIL model with a 9-fold cross-validation, using 33 sequences to train and 4 to V reg V other V large V mean Fig. 3: Results of GMA case study. Percentage of ratings of synthetic sequences, generated using SMIL, that agree with the reference ratings R 1 V rgb (left) and R 2 V rgb (right), respectively. V {reg,other,large,mean} denotes different stimuli.

test. Different clothing styles (onesie, diaper, no clothing) are distributed across all sets. We evaluate the scan distance to the model mesh (E s2m ) by computing the Euclidean distance of each scan vertex to the mesh surface.

To evaluate the shape space, we register SMPL B and SMIL to the fusion clouds and evaluate E s2m w.r.t. the number of shape parameters (Fig. 2a). SMIL is more accurate than SMPL B when using the same number of shape parameters. To evaluate how well the computed shapes and poses explain the input data we register SMPL B and SMIL to all sequences (200K frames) with the method described in Sec. 2 using 20 shape components. For SMPL B , E s2m is 2.67 mm (SD 0.22 mm), and for SMIL, E s2m is slightly better: 2.51 mm (SD 0.21 mm). Fig. 2b shows a registration sample. Manual inspection of all sequences reveals 16 unnatural leg/foot rotations, lasting altogether 41 s (= 0.54% of total duration), and 18 failure cases (in 7 sequences), lasting altogether 49 s (= 0.66 % of total duration). The most common failure is "mixed up feet", i.e. feet aligned to the opposite side. Once, arm tracking is lost during side viewing, and one time a leg is severly twisted.

We conduct a case study on GMA to show that SMIL captures enough information to allow medical assessment. Three trained and certified GMA-experts perform GMA in different videos. We use five stimuli: i) the original RGB videos (denoted by V rgb ), and ii) the synthetic alignment videos (V reg ). For the next three stimuli we use the acquired poses of infants, but we animate a body with a different shape, namely iii) a randomly selected shape of another infant (V other ), iv) an extreme shape producing a very thick and large baby (V large ), and v) the mean shape (V mean ). We exclude three of the 37 sequences, as two are too short and one has non-nutritive sucking, making it non suitable for GMA. As the number of videos to rate is high (34*5), for iv) and v) we only use 50% of the sequences, resulting in 136 videos. For a finer evaluation, we augment standard GMA classes definitely abnormal (DA), mildly abnormal (MA), normal suboptimal (NS), and normal optimal (NO) [START_REF] Hadders-Algra | General movements: a window for early identification of children at high risk for developmental disorders[END_REF] into a one to ten scale. Scores 1-3 correspond to DA, 4-5 to MA, 6-7 to NS, and 8-10 to NO. We consider two ratings with an absolute difference ≤ 1 to agree, and otherwise to disagree.

Rater R 1 is a long-time GMA teacher and has worked on GMA for over 25 years, R 2 has 15 years experience in GMA, and R 3 was certified one year ago, but lacks clinical routine in GMA. Average rating score (and standard deviation) for R1 is 4.7 (1.4), for R2 4.0 (1.9), and for R3 4.9 (2.3). The agreement on original RGB ratings V rgb between R 3 and the more experienced raters is lower than 50%, while R 1 and R 2 agree on 65% of the ratings. This further stresses that GMA is challenging and its automation important. Due to the high rater variability we further focus on ratings of experienced raters R 1 and R 2 . In Fig. 3, we present rating differences between synthetic and reference sequences. Each rater is compared to her own V rgb ratings as a reference. R 1 V reg ratings agree on 91% of the reference ratings, whereas R 2 achieves an agreement rate of 79%. The agreement decreases more (R 2 ) or less (R 1 ) when the motions are presented with a different body shape. By extending the agreement threshold to ≤ 2, the percentages of all sequences become very similar. We intend to conduct further studies to elucidate the biases introduced by variation of shape.

Conclusions

In this paper, we contribute SMIL, a realistic, data-driven infant body model, learned from noisy, low-quality, incomplete RGB-D data, as well as a method to register SMIL to the data. Their combination allows the accurate capture of shape and 3D body motion of freely moving infants. Quantitative experiments showed that SMIL's metric accuracy is ≈ 2.5mm. We demonstrated its clinical usability with a case study on general movement assessment. Our results illustrate the challenges of human GMA ratings -rater subjectivity and rater consistency -and reinforce the need for an automated system. Two experienced raters obtained 91% and 79% agreement between GMA ratings performed on original RGB videos and on synthetic videos generated using our method, indicating that SMIL captures enough motion detail for medical assessment. The introduction of shape variations led to a degradation of rating agreement.

Future work will study which non-motion related factors (body shape, texture, lighting) most affect the GMA ratings. Furthermore, we will target the automation of GMA by learning to infer ratings from the captured data. We are also investigating the usability of the system for quantification of disease progress and the impact of early therapy in infants with spinal muscular atrophy.

Fig. 2 :

 2 Fig. 2: (a): Average scan-to-mesh error E s2m in mm w.r.t. the number of shape parameters for the two models aligned to all fusion scans. (b): example of RGB input image and the result of SMIL registered to the data.


Frans Van Koppen
email: frans.vankoppen@ntlworld.com.

Denis Lacambre
email: denis.lacambre@univ-lille3.fr.

SIPPAR AND THE FRONTIER BETWEEN ESNUNNA AND BABYLON New sources for the History of Esnunna in the Old Babylonian Period

Sippar and the Frontier between Ešnunna and Babylon.

Introduction

The flatlands along the lower Diyala, east of the Tigris, and the northern part of the Mesopotamian flood plain, hemmed between the almost parallel courses of Tigris and Euphrates, shared a common culture in the early centuries of the second millennium BC. Cultural cohesion over this area is manifest in the local calendars, with Esnunna and Sippar sharing no less than six month names,2 and in the many shared conventions of the early texts from Sippar and the Diyala sites, indicating an important common tradition of legal forms and scribal practices. 3 The cultural identity of the region also had deep historical roots that found expression in the habit of referring to the whole region by the name of Akkad, 4 and the legacy of the legendary dynasty of Sargon was indeed felt with particular vibrancy on both sides of the Tigris river. 5 Following the end of the Ur III empire, political power in the land of Akkad had to a large degree become decentralized, as is clear from the names of numerous local potentates that appear in the sources, even if it is not always possible to ascertain their seats of power or even their sequence. Letters from the early 19th century BC indicate that political alliances involving a number of rulers did occasionally come about, but these typically failed to have lasting effects on a fragmented political landscape. 6 What is important is that these episodes illustrate that political leagues sometimes encompassed both banks of the Tigris, clearly showing that the river did not impede social and cultural exchanges in any significant way. 7 The political manoeuvres illustrated by these letters must be understood against the background of the rising power of the kingdom of Babylon under Sumulael (1880-1845 BC). The consolidation of Babylonian influence in the northern flood plain, coupled with a renaissance of the kingdom of Esnunna under Ipiq-Adad II, resulted in a permanent division of the land of Akkad between Esnunna and Babylon by the second half of the 19th century BC. Few concrete facts survive that could illustrate how this process took place, but its outcome is unambiguous, with local dynasties coming to an end and the dating and oath customs of the capital cities, as well as their administrative institutions, implemented in cities that had been politically independent before. 8 The line of demarcation between the Babylonian and Esnunnean zones of influence ran somewhere north and east of Tell ed-Der but cannot always be located with accuracy. It was certainly not a fixed boundary, as is clear from the fact that control over several towns at, or near, the Tigris changed hands more than once: Apil-Sin of Babylon (1830-1813 BC) claimed to have conquered Astabala 9 and to have fortified Opis on the east bank 10 as well as other towns along the river, 11 but the Babylonian hold of the Tigris banks was not destined to last. Naram-Sin of Esnunna, in the first year of his reign 12 -probably around the beginning of the reign of Sin-muballi † (1812-1793 BC) -reversed the Babylonian territorial gains by capturing the towns of ∑upur-Samas and Astabala 'across the Tigris', meaning on its western bank. 13 Control of the Tigris artery thus was an important territorial objective for both states, but the competition was permanently decided in favour of Esnunna once Naram-Sin launched his offensive. The northern line of defence of the kingdom of Babylon came to rest at the Irnina river with its strongholds like the town of Hiritum, 14 and Babylon gave up its ambitions to control the Tigris bank north of that line. For the next fifty years, until the fall of Esnunna, it was not to return north to revive its claims on the region. 15 Leaving aside such occasional episodes of territorial rivalry, there is nothing to suggest that levels of social and economic interaction in the land of Akkad declined once the region had been carved up between Babylon and Esnunna. The rich evidence for contacts with the Diyala region in archival sources from Sippar, coupled with references to Sippar and its institutions in texts from various sites in the kingdom of Esnunna, show that intensive contacts were maintained across political borders. As major trading centres at strategic nodes of the interregional routes, Esnunna and Sippar were tied into the network of long-distance commerce: Esnunna was the main gateway to the highlands of the east and a stop at one of the routes from Babylonia to Assur, and Sippar (in reality two homonymous towns straddling a mayor ancient branch of the Euphrates river, known by the modern names of Abu Habbah and Tell ed-Der) was the main mercantile centre on Babylonian territory. 16 But it was more than a mutual interest in the flow of foreign merchandise that linked the towns across the border, because Sippar and the densely settled land at the mouth of the Diyala river were close enough (with Sippar no more than 60 km removed from Esnunna further upstream) for their inhabitants to interact in a variety of ways.

The onomastics from Sippar shows this quite clearly because names with distinctive divine elements from the Diyala region (Tispak 17 and Tutub 18 ) appear here far more frequently than elsewhere in Babylonia. 19 It is important to realize that non-citizens were normally not identified as such 20 so that those Diyala people without distinctive names do not stand out, meaning that a far larger proportion of contacts with the region has to be assumed. While permanent settlers in Sippar from the Diyala region have previously been identified and discussed, 21 routine communications across the Tigris are revealed by the presence of letters from the Diyala region at Sippar, so far as can be deducted from their contents, personal names, or the local greeting formula -invoking Samas and Tispak instead of Samas and Marduk, which would be typical for the kingdom of Babylon. 22 The institution of the naditum-devotees of Samas at Sippar was certainly an important factor in the dynamics of contact between Sippar and the Diyala region. In the early Old Babylonian 154 JAARBERICHT "EX ORIENTE LUX" 41 -2008LUX" 41 - -2009 20 20 Exceptions are few: Al-Rawi and Dalley Edubba 7 26: 3, and two individuals from the time of Samsuiluna: be-el-su-nu (lú) ès-nun-na in undated ration lists from his early years (BM 96986: 37; BM 97021: 23), and Anapani-Sîn-nadi in BM 81163 (Samsuiluna 2). In CBTBM 8 (1988) 253 it was observed that this text makes reference to Esnunna, which is why it is given here in full (Bu 91-5-9, 1299; 3.5 × 3.3 × 1.8 cm; copy p. 154): (Obv) 3.0.0 se-gur 2 sa x (x) gi za tum 3 sà-bi 2.4.2 se-<gur> 4 im-ta-ha-ar (LoE) 0.0.4 se 6 I sí-ia-tum (Rev) ra-bi-a-num 8 a-na <a-na>-pa-ni-d suen-na-di 9 ès-nun-na ki 10 id-di-in 11 iti bára-zag-gar u 4 -1-kam (UE) mu ama-ar-gi 13 ki-en-gi uri 3 (SES) (LeE) i-na sa ta-as-pu-ra 15 30-i-qí-sa-am, '(Concerning) three kor of barley (= 900 litres) of…, from which he has received in several instalments a total of 2.4.2 kor of barley (= 860 litres); four seah of barley (= 40 litres) Siyyatum the mayor has now given to Ana-pani-Sîn-nadi of Esnunna. Month one, day one, the year "Restoration of Sumer and Akkad". From that about which you have instructed Sîn-iqisam.' This receipt tablet, for the balance of a sum of barley described in the first two lines (the meaning of the second line remains unclear), was impressed with what seems a figurative seal (only traces are visible) which may have belonged to the recipient Ana-pani-Sîn-nadi, or to the sender, if the postscript on the left edge is taken as an indication that the tablet was actually an unaddressed letter informing the addressee that his instructions have been executed. 21 Harris 1976: 148-151. 22 AbB 6 189 and Al-Rawi and Dalley Edubba 7 82 (with commentary Al-Rawi and Dalley 2000: 90). One writer invokes Samas and Tispak (so!) when writing from the kingdom of Esnunna (AbB 2 105) but Samas and Assur when in Assur (AbB 1 130), see Leemans 1968: 200. BM 81163 (copy van Koppen); index measures 1 cm. period most naditum -unmarried women who entered the household of Samas and his consort Aya for life -were still accommodated in a residential complex (gagûm) belonging to the Samas temple at Abu Habbah. Many well-to-do families from Babylonia and abroad [START_REF]For the origin of naditum devotees beyond Sippar see for example Harris[END_REF] sent their daughters to this prestigious institution for religious and cultural reasons, but also with more practical considerations in mind: Samas devotees could act as real estate proprietors and moneylenders on behalf of their families, with their status -and that of their divine masterenhancing the legal validity of the transaction. Moreover, non-resident families would have profited from their naditum relatives because their presence made communications with Sippar more reliable, plus they were well-connected to advocate the interests of their families in town.

There is a long tradition of naditum of Samas in Sippar originating from the Diyala region. Legal texts involving Samas devotees with oaths by kings of Sippar but found at Tell Harmal show that the custom predates the ascendancy of Babylon and Esnunna in the region. 24 The habit of dedicating young women to Samas continued thereafter and may have been fairly common, because references to Samas devotees are found at several sites within the kingdom of Esnunna and appear as late as the reign of ∑illi-Sin (1764-1762 BC). 25 It stands to reason that naditum from the Diyala region should also feature in texts from Sippar, even if they can only be recognized when associated with attributes revealing their origin. Letters of Samas devotees with relatives back home often contain pertinent remarks, 26 with one interesting case in point of a letter from a royal servant of king ∑illi-Sin of Esnunna, asking two women, the second presumably his sister and both almost certainly naditum, for assistance in the matter of an escaped slave. 27 The prevalence of the phenomenon of the Samas naditum in the realm of Esnunna is another telling sign for the more than regional importance of the cult of Samas of Sippar for northern Mesopotamia. 28 It is also the background for the attendance at Sippar of three year names that celebrate deeds of the kings of Esnunna. While in the past they have occasionally been seen as indications for momentary pre-eminence of the kings of Esnunna over Sippar, it is clear that they can be read more fruitfully as evidence for religious and economic interactions across political boundaries, and present evidence for communities in the frontier zone for which little other textual evidence has come to light. In what follows two previously published documents and one new record with an Esnunna year name will be discussed, with connected materials. Note that a fourth specimen of what looked like an Esnunna year name is recorded in the British Museum catalogue, but this date turned out to involve an Old Assyrian king and will be presented elsewhere. 29 1. Ipiq-Adad II and Suhûm

The town of Rapiqum is situated between Suhûm and Babylonia. Its location was originally thought to be in the vicinity of modern Ramadi but an identification with Tell Anbar, near Falluga, seems now more likely. 30 The town was conquered repeatedly in the course of the Old Babylonian period, events that are particularly well documented in the sources from Mari: control of the town was an important objective for kings of Babylon (Hammurabi), the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia (Samsi-Addu) as well as Esnunna (Dadusa and Ibal-pi-El II). 31 Its conquest by yet another king of Esnunna, Ipiq-Adad II, should be considered on the basis of the date formula of BDHP 38, 'The year: Ipiq-Adad conquered Rapiqum' (mu ra-píqum ki I i-pí-iq-d iskur ba-dib), 32 but the attribution of this date to Ipiq-Adad has been called into question. Several scholars have interpreted it as a form of the name of Hammurabi's 11th year, a formula also celebrating the conquest of Rapiqum. Wu has argued that the name Ipiq-Adad in the date was defective for the toponym Dur-Ipiq-Adad (the scribe having omitted the sign BÀD by mistake), a town for which he detected an alternative name (Salibi) in an example of the 11th year name of Hammurabi 33 . Whereas the town of Dur-Ipiq-Adad is well attested, for example in a Mari text, 34 this alternative name can no longer be upheld, because the sequence 'sa-li-bi' in its sole attestation must be read á-dam-bi, 'its surroundings': mu rapí-qum ù á*-dam*-bi (coll. Lacambre). 35 The 11th year name of Hammurabi thus reads: 'The year: (he captured) Rapiqum and its surroundings.' This removes all doubts against taking the date of BDHP 38 as a year name of Ipiq-Adad II, a shorter form of which appears on a tablet from the Gidanum archive from Tell Harmal, which incidentally indicates that it should be situated in the last part of the king's reign. 36 L. W. King (1900: 239 note 72) was the first to make reference to the year name that appears on BDHP 38 (referring to the text under the siglum Bu 91-5-9, 2515). In 1916 a composite copy of tablet and case was published by L. Waterman (1916: 87 no. 38), a publication from which the text is known in the literature as BDHP 38 or W 38. Working on the assumption that the document was dated to the 11th year of Hammurabi, B. Teissier (1998) included the seal impressions appearing on the case and tablet in her catalogue of seal impressions Tablet (BM 82498 = Bu 91-5-9, 2515) Case (BM 82499 = Bu 91-5-9, 2515A) (6.5 × 4.1 × 2.4 cm) (7.9 × 4.9 × 3.3 cm) 2/3 ma-na kù-babbar dub 2/3 ma-na kù-babbar

2 más d utu ú-Òa-a[b] 2 m á s d utu ú-Òa-ab ki d suen-ri-im-ú-ri-im ki d suen-ri-im-ú-ri-
[igi s]u-[pa-pu]-um dumu l[i-o]-x-ia ì-lá-e-m[e]s 12 [ig]i †à-ab-Òí-la-s[u] Rev igi su-pa-pu-um dumu li-x-[o-i]a [dumu d ]utu-tab-ba-we-d[i] igi †à-ab-Òí-la-su dumu d utu-ta[b-b]a-[we-di] 14 [igi ia]-[ha-tu] dumu sí-[ni]-ia 16 igi ia-ha-tu dumu sí-ni-i[a]
[igi ìr-ku]-bi dumu su-pí-saº igi e-la-li dumu 30-se-mi 16 [igi e-l]a-li dumu d suen-se-mi 18 igi i-in-a-bi-su dumu 30-ga-mil [igi i-i]n-a-bi-su igi ìr-ku-bi dumu su-pí-sa-a 18 [dumu] d suen-ga-mil 20 igi ri-is-èr-ra dumu bu-bu-um

[igi] dingir-su-illat-sú dumu d suen-i-din-nam igi dingir-su-illat-sú dumu 30-i-din-nam 20 [ig]i ri-is-èr-ra dumu bu-bu-/um UE igi d utu-tab-ba-su in-sar mu ra-pí-[qum] ki mu ra-pí-qum ki 22 I i-pí-iq-[ d ]iskur ba-dib 24 I i-pí-iq-d iskur ba-dib UE Id utu-tab-ba-su in-sar (seal impressions) LeE iti e-lu-nim (seal impression) LeE (uninscribed, seal impressions)

'2/3 mana of silver (= 40 shekels) -the interest of Samas he will add -Aksak-semi son of Erra-habit, Belessunu his wife and Elluratum their daughter have received from Sîn-rim-Urim son of Ebabbar-lumur. They will pay silver with its interest at the appointed term (case only adds: at the quay of Ya[bliya]).

Before Supapum son of Li…ya; before ™ab-Òillasu son of Sîn-tappi-wedim; before Yahatu son of Sinniya; before Elali son of Sîn-semi; before In-abisu son of Sîn-gamil; before Warad-Kubi son of Su-pisa; before Ris-Erra son of Bubum; before Ilsu-tillassu son of Sîn-iddinam; (tablet only: before Samas-tappasu the scribe). The year: 'Ipiq-Adad conquered Rapiqum'. (case only: Samas-tappasu wrote.) (tablet only adds: month of Elunum.)' Sealings: the tablet carries the impression of one seal and the case of at least three. None of the seals contains a legend and their impressions are not annotated with captions. Seal A (the sole sealing of the tablet and the first sealing on the case) almost certainly belongs to the principal debtor, Aksak-semi; ownership of the other seals cannot be established. Note that in the scribal conventions of Sippar the inner tablet of a case tablet is not sealed, so that the presence of a sealing on BM 82498 is another indication for its production outside of Sippar.

All sealings have been described by Teissier (1998), to which the following observations can be added: Wu (1994: 76) noted that the creditor Sîn-rim-Urim appears in another Sippar text, CT 8 42b dating to the 8th year of Sin-muballi † (1805 BC). The link between the two tablets (to be explored in more detail below), confirms what is also suggested by their acquisition history (the vast majority of tablets in the Bu 91-5-9 collection come from Abu Habbah and Tell ed-Der): the tablets belonged to one and the same archive at Sippar. The link discovered by Wu allows to resolve the apparent disagreement between the year name and the provenance of the text: BDHP 38 is a tablet written in the territory of the king of Esnunna (perhaps in Yabliya) and was brought to Sippar in antiquity.

CT 8 42b records a loan of four minas of silver by Eristi-Samas, a naditum-devotee of Samas,39 to her father Sîn-rim-Urim. In exchange she receives two slaves whose salaries are worth eight shekels of silver per year. The publication in CT 8 only gives the tablet but its case has not been published. Given that its text is almost identical to that of the tablet, only its variants are noted below:

CT 8 42b (BM 92655, Bu 91-5-9, 2455) 4 ma-na kù-babbar 2 más d utu ú-Òa-ab 3 1 sag-ìr ì-lí-ma-ta-ar 4 1 sag-ìr d utu-na-ap-se-ra-am 5 8 gín kù-babbar i-na mu-1-kam 6 ki-iÒ-ru-su-nu 7 ki e-ri-is-ti-d utu lukur d utu 8 dumu-munus d suen-ri-imúrim ki 9 I d suen-ri-im-úrim ki 10 dumu é-bábbar-lu-ºmurº 11 iti º d dumu-zi su-ba-an-tiº 12 iti º d dumu-ziº 13 kù-babbar ù más-bi ì-lá-e (LoE uninscribed) (Rev) 14 igi èr-ra-ga-mil dumu ri-ib-nu-nu 15 igi ìlí-ma-a-hi dumu º30º-re-me-ni 16 igi ib-ni-èr-ra 17 dumu e-tel-ka-èr-ra 18 igi d utu-ti-la-sú 19 dumu in-bu-um 20 igi e-ri-ib-d suen dub-sar (blank space) 21 mu íd d a-a-hé-gál (UE and LeE uninscribed) Variants from case (BM 92655a, Bu 91-5-9, 2455a): 10 ºmu-urº; 11 ºdumu-zi / kù-babbar su-baan-tiº; 12 ºdumu-ziº; 15 º d suenº.

'4 minas of silver (= 240 shekels) -the interest of Samas he will add; one slave Ili-matar, one slave Samas-napseram, their wage per year is 8 shekels of silver -Sîn-rim-Urim son of Ebabbar-lumur has received (case adds: the silver) in the month of Dumuzi from Eristi-Samas, the naditum of Samas, daughter of Sîn-rim-Urim. In the month of Dumuzi he will pay the silver with its interest.

Before Erra-gamil son of Rib-Nunu; before Ili-ma-ahi son of Sîn-remeni; before Ibni-Erra son of Etel-pi-Erra; before Samas-tillassu son of Inbum; before Erib-Sîn the scribe. The year: "The Aya-hegal canal" (= Sin-muballi † 8).'

The case carries several impressions of two seals. The first seal contains a legend box with the following text: d suen-ri-im-úrim ki / dumu é-bábbar-lu-mu-ur / ìr d i-sum, 'Sîn-rim-Urim, son of Ebabbar-lumur, servant of Isum'; the second seal has not legend and is not annotated.

T11-12/C11&13: Dumuzi is a month name common to the calendars of Samsi-Addu (month X)

and Sippar (where it is, according to Greengus 2001: 263, an alternative name for month IV).

The interpretation of this text is difficult, as was noted by Skaist (1994: 224):

'According to this text, a father borrowed four minas of silver (= 240 shekels) at interest (más d utu), and hired out to his daughter two slaves at 8 shekels per annum for both of them. If we assume that más d utu equals 20%, then the wages of the slaves, 8 shekels, come nowhere near balancing the interest on the loan, which is 48 shekels.'

Now we should look again at BDHP 38, a tablet recording an obligation in silver due to Sîn-rim-Urim, the father of Eristi-Samas. Its value, 40 shekels of silver, is the exact amount missing in the hypothesis of Skaist, which suggests that the tablet may have been handed over by the father to his daughter to cover the balance of the interest due for his loan; this hypothesis explains nicely why and how the tablet ended in her archive at Sippar. Whether the tablet served as a security for future payment of the balance by Sîn-rim-Urim, or whether he had given it to her to pay the outstanding sum (with Eristi-Samas obtaining the right to collect from Aksak-semi and his family) cannot be decided; the fact that both tablets survive in any case suggests that neither loan was ever repaid. This allows to entertain the proposition that the family of Aksak-semi had ended up in debt servitude to Sîn-rim-Urim and continued to serve his daughter in Sippar after their debt note had been handed over to her. The arrangement of antichretic interest supplied by slaves in CT 8 42b can be cited in support of this idea, because it shows that Eristi-Samas was accustomed to employ unfree laborers supplied by her father. Finally, the age of the loan of BDHP 38 by the time when CT 8 42b was written is obviously of chronological interest, but the documents themselves do not contain any evidence pertinent to that question. We will come back to the chronology of the texts in the conclusion.

Now that we have established that BDHP 38 is indeed dated by a year name of a king of Esnunna but has been found at Sippar, and have formulated a hypothesis why the document may have come to that town, we turn to the historical significance of the new date for the reign of Ipiq-Adad II. The reign of this king brought a phase of great expansion to the kingdom of Esnunna, and his conquest of Rapiqum does not come as a surprise: this town was the key to Suhûm for any power coming from the east and south. Confirmation that Rapiqum has been conquered by Ipiq-Adad II can be found in a silver loan contract excavated at Sisin and dated with the following year name of Ipiq-Adad: 'The second year in which Ipiq-Adad built the ditch of Yabliya.' [START_REF] Mohammad | [END_REF] If the king of Esnunna was able to control Suhûm as far as Yabliya (as indicated by the event commemorated in this year name), by implication he must also have controlled Rapiqum, the critical point of passage between Esnunna and Suhûm.

Sisin is on the opposite river bank from the ancient town of Yabliya, 41 which is perhaps also the place where repayment of the loan in BDHP 38 is stipulated (see case line 9), and as such possibly the home town of Sîn-rim-Urim. [START_REF]For another resident of Rapiqum who dedicated his daughter as Samas naditum see Charpin[END_REF] The date of the text -in the year after the conquest of Rapiqum -may explain the unusual character of the loan, in which a man is the debtor together with his wife and daughter. Collective loans by families normally involve widows with their children, but the presence of the pater familias suggests that atypical circumstances lie behind this case. One wonders whether we may recognize here the effects of warfare, more specifically the capture of the conquered population for ransom; in this scenario Sîn-rim-Urim advanced the redemption price for a family, and, once they had been released, formalized their obligation to repay him in the document that has survived.

A naditum of Samas from Suhûm

The tablet VS 8 3 was acquired by the Berlin Museum in the late 1880s as part of a collection of tablets from Sippar (Abu Habbah). [START_REF] Schorr | 213. For the provenance of the Homsy tablets see F. van Koppen[END_REF] Its date however has posed a problem for this provenance: 44 the year name mentions a king by the name of Naram-Sin, who has been recognized as the ruler of Esnunna by that name. The text records the donation of a field by a father to his daughter, a naditum-devotee of Samas, who was presumably sent to the gagûm at Sippar from an area under the dominion of Esnunna.

VS 8 3 (VAT 735) 0.1.3 iku a-sà i-na pa-ni 2 da ha-la a-sà d suen-dingir 3 ù da ha-la 4 a-sà e-te-el-ka-d nu-mus-<da> 5 sa a-na be-le-sú-nu lukur d utu 6 I ku-uk-ku-ú 7 ad-a-ni ú-we-du-si-im (blank space) 8 igi dingir-suba-ni 9 dumu d suen-i-din ! -nam (LoE uninscribed) (Rev) 10 igi a-hu-la-ap-d suen 11 dumu ha-ba-ti-ia 12 igi lú-d iskur-ra ? lú-kus 7 ? 13 dumu d nu-mus-da-illat-ti 14 igi a-hi-sa-gi-is 15 dumu um-mi-d ha-na-at 16 igi d suen-ga-me-il 17 ù ìr-ì-lí-su 18 dumu-mes kù-d nanna 19 igi d suen-be-el-ì-lí dub-sar 20 dumu nuúr-é-a (UE) 21 mu bára sa d x x (x) 22 na-ra-am-d suen ba-dù 'A field of 9 iku (= ca. 3.42 ha) at the front, adjoining the field share of Sîn-ili and adjoining the field share of Etel-pi-Numusda, which her father Kukkû has assigned to Belessunu, the naditum of Samas.

Before Ilsu-bani son of Sîn-iddinam; before Ahulap-Sîn son of Habatiya; before the animal fattener Lu-Iskura son of Numusda-tillati; before Ahi-sagis son of Ummi-Hanat; before Sîn-gamil and Warad-ilisu sons of Ku-Nanna; before the scribe Sîn-bel-ili son of Nur-Ea. The year: "Naram-Sin fashioned the dais of…".' 1: The translation of ina pani follows Kohler and Ungnad, HG IV (1910) 50, no. 987 ('auf der Vorderseite') and Schorr, UAZP (1913) 295, no. 213 ('auf der Frontseite'). zitti eqlim (lines 2-4) indicates that Kukkû is signing over (part of) his inheritance share which he had divided with his relatives; ina pani suggests that his share was at the front of the entire estate with respect to an unspecified topographical point of reference. 21: The year name is difficult, even though it is cast in a conventional form: the royal manufacture (ba-dù) of a dais (bára) for a deity. It is the reading of the divine name in line 21 that forms the crux. The sign sequence at the end of that line was at first read ' d NER…KI' by Ungnad (OLZ 12 [1909] 478-479); a reading Nergal for these signs was suggested by Schorr, UAZP (1913) 296, who read ' dingir Îus.Gaz.Ki.' Subsequently Ungnad proposed ' d kis(?)-x-ki' (Datenlisten, RlA 2 [1938] 194, no. 15 [28]). Wu 1994: 86 also thought of the name of the god Nergal, and was followed in this by Saporetti in his study of the year names from the Diyala region, albeit with some reservations (Saporetti 1999: 396 II2K). A recent collation by M. Krebernik has confirmed the accuracy of the published copy, but no familiar divine name suggests itself for this sequence of three -or perhaps just two -unidentified signs.

The year name in this text is not attested in the kingdom of Esnunna, which means that one can a priori not exclude that it belongs to a different ruler than Naram-Sin of Esnunna. This is however quite unlikely if the place of origin of the record is taken into account. Some indications for where it may come from are offered by the name material of the text. The name Ummi-Hanat (line 15) invokes the goddess Hanat whose main cult centre was the town with the same name in northern Suhûm (located on the island of 'Ana). 45 Furthermore, the names in lines 4 and 13 refer to Numusda, a god whose best-known cult centre was the town of Kazallu (south of Babylon) but who was also worshipped in the Middle Euphrates region. M. Krebernik has called attention to the relative prominence of Numusda in texts from Mari and Tuttul, 46 and the god appears with some frequency in the personal names from Sippar. 47 These indications taken together suggest that another focal point for the cult of Numusda must be sought somewhere in the Middle Euphrates region. Suhûm is for that reason the likeliest place of origin of VS 8 3, a tablet that must have travelled to Sippar together with the beneficiary of the inheritance share it records. The king in the year name can now with confidence be identified as Naram-Sin of Esnunna, a ruler who extended his power over Suhûm beyond the level of control that his father Ipiq-Adad II had established, and made his influence felt as far as the city of Mari. 48 The people mentioned in VS 8 3 are not known from other texts but a link may exist with BDHP 49, an undated sale contract for a garden plot in which the god Numusda features prominently. 49 The real estate borders on property of the god (line 2), and the text contains two personal names with Numusda as the divine element (lines 4 and 14'). These features led F. R. Kraus to propose that BDHP 49 might come from Kazallu, but he conceded that the absence of a price statement in the text is typical for early Sippar texts. 50 To this we add that its acquisition history points to Sippar as well, and that it is written entirely in Akkadian, which is more common in Sippar, and elsewhere in the north, than in central Babylonia. The oldest brother of the three sellers in BDHP 49 is called Etel-pi-Numusda, which is also the name of one of the adjacent field owners in VS 8 3. If this is the same man, then both texts are likely to deal with real estate in the same locality and were presumably part of the same archive in Sippar. With no patronymic mentioned in VS 8 3, it is not possible at the moment to confirm this suggestion, but the prominence of Numusda is by itself an argument to consider BDHP 49 another Suhûm document among the tablets from Sippar.

Political refugees from Esnunna

BM 80683 dates to the reign of Dadusa of Esnunna. 51 Its date formula, 'The year: the golden statue of Dadusa', has the following parallels: 52 The above formulas stand for the same year name but draw on different elements from one long formula which is not attested in full. The clauses on hand show that this formula commemorated Dadusa bringing two statues of himself 53 into the temple of (probably) Tispak, the first made of gold and the second made of bronze. No attributes appear in connection with the golden statue 54 but the bronze statue receives an unclear qualification. 55 53 That both statues represented the king is shown by sa in (1) and ( 5). 54 The choice of metal material is significant: other royal statues of gold in Esnunna year names are described as representing the king in a praying posture: alan karibu in a year name of Dannum-tahaz (YOS 14 70 see De Jong Ellis 1985: 75 no. 4) and alan sùd(-dè) in the seventh year name of Ibal-pi-El II (see note 57). 55 The transliteration of three unintelligible signs in ( 5)-( 7) follows the published copies. ( 5) and ( 6) have been interpreted as 'praying statues' (alan sùd) by Greengus 1979: 24 nos 7-8 (followed by Saporetti 1999: 441-442), but this is not supported by the copies, nor is this type of statue likely in the light of the material from which it was made (DeJong Ellis 1985: 73-74 and 1986: 774). Other royal statues of bronze in Esnunna year names are said to depict the king as a warrior: in a smiting posture (mahiÒum see DeJong Ellis 1985: 76-77 note 68) or marching in BM 80683 (copy van Koppen); index measures 1 cm. BM 81641 (copy van Koppen); index measures 1 cm.

Composite drawing of sealing on BM 81641 (copy van Koppen); index measures 1 cm. time of Dadusa or thereabouts are dated with date formulas involving a 'statue of gold' (mu alan kù-GI) with no mention of a royal name or other distinguishing attributes; 56 others invoke a 'praying statue of gold' (mu alan sùd(-dè) kù-GI / alan kù-GI sùd-dè) without a king's name. 57 Since Dadusa's predecessors and his successor also celebrated golden statues in their year names, it is not possible to assign any of these documents to the reign of Dadusa unless archival or prosopographical indications allow a more specific date.

The tablet from Sippar with the year name of Dadusa reads as follows:

BM 80683 (Bu 91-5-9, 821) ( 5 '2 billy goats, 152 rams, 189 ewes, 76 male lambs, 52 female lambs -in total 471 heads of small cattle, the responsible herdsmen being Ali-pû, Subula-abum the servant of the house and Gurrudum the soldier, (all of which) belonging to Amat-Samas daughter of Yakun-harari, assets inspected in Sunana under the responsibility of PN and Ili-rabi. Month of Tamhirum, day 6, the year: "The golden statue of Dadusa".' 7: This seems to be the first attestation of gáb-ús for kaparrum, 'junior shepherd' (H. Waetzoldt, RlA 4 [1972-75] 421) in second millennium texts. The Sumerian term belongs to the category of frozen verbal forms for professions discussed by Selz 1993 (gáb-ús on p. 38). In the Ur III period gáb-ús is common but ka-bar is the norm in Old Babylonian texts; note that gáb-bar (variant ga-ab-ra) appears in Old Babylonian proto Lu 481 (MSL 12 p. 50). The title at the beginning of the line mirrors na-gada preceding personal names in other herd records (for the Diyala region see UCP 10/1 10: 14 [Greengus 1986: 102] and OECT 13 235: 4'). 7: The name Ali-pû, 'Where is the command (of god)?', belongs to a name type expressing complaints in the form of a question (Stamm 1939: 165). Longer forms of the same question seem to occur in the names a-lí-pa-AN and a-lí-pa-d utu (with pa reflecting a dialectal variant pa'um, see GAG § 54b and 65i). These names have been discussed repeatedly, and Stamm's reading a-lí-ha †-AN / a-lí-ha †-d utu was most recently upheld by Stol (1991: 194 with literature in note 31) but is difficult to harmonize with the fact that a-lí-pa-d utu (CT 47 31; C50; MHET 2/2 183: T29'; same man in BE 6/1 15: 25?) varies with a writing a-li-ip-d utu (CT 8 13c: 17; 35b: 24; 43a: 27) for the name of the same individual. 12: Restored after OECT 13 235: 2': si-lá i-na an-za-gàr (restoring [pí-qí-tum] is also possible in the available space); for piqittum ina GN see van Koppen 2002: 291-292. The toponym Sunana seems unattested elsewhere. 13: The traces suggest [i]-Òí-ha-[ab]-du but this name seems unattested elsewhere.

This unsealed tablet gives the inventory of a herd of small cattle comprising two male goats and 469 sheep classified by gender and age, in the care of three individuals (two bearing a title), followed by the name of its owner and a damaged passage that most likely indicates where the inspection of the herd took place and who were responsible. The tablet is dated to the month of Tamhirum (the eighth month of the Esnunna calendar), which is significant because the eighth month of the Mesopotamian calendar (October-November) was the usual time for the annual counting of large and small cattle. With ploughing completed and oxen and cows returning from the fields, this was the optimal moment in the agricultural cycle to do so, 58 while herds of sheep and goats may have been included to achieve a comprehensive overview of the livestock of the herd owner. 59 This annual count of large and small cattle in the kingdom of Babylon was known as ZA-la-tum / ZA-la-at, a designation of uncertain etymology, 60 which took place in the eighth or ninth month of the year. 61 The noun is not attested in texts from the kingdom of Esnunna but practice in this area was similar, as is indicated by evidence for a cattle inspection during the eighth month, and the obligation of a shepherd to return the herd in his care in the same month. 62 The identity of the herd owner explains why this tablet has turned up in Sippar. Amat-Samas, the daughter of Yakun-harari, is attested as a naditum-devotee of Samas in the first half of the reign of Hammurabi. Her name again appears in connection with Esnunna in the following tablet: 63 F. VAN KOPPEN AND D. LACAMBRE 167 58 Potts 1997: 73-74; for counts of large cattle during the eighth and early ninth month see Postgate 1975: 17. 59 An alternative time of inspection of herds of small cattle was the spring when the animals came in for shearing and the herds were (re)assigned to shepherds, see Postgate 1975: 4. 60 CAD S p. 94 s.v. salatu B and AbB 13 33 note c to translation. The orthography of AbB 2 15 may be significant for the quality of the sibilant.

61 AbB 2 15 (large and small cattle, month 8); Arnaud BBVOT 1 159 (small cattle, month 9); Goetze JCS 2 (1948) 105-106 no. 9 (large cattle, month 8). See also AbB 10 23, AbB 13 33 and BM 80528, the last text a herding contract dated in the twelfth month of Ammiditana's second year, with the shepherd promising to bring the sheep in his care to their owner 'at the count and for shearing': 10 u 8 -udu-hi-a sa-al-ma-tim 11 a-na ZA-la-tim ù baqá-mi 12 shepherd 14 a-na owner 16 ub-[ba]-lam. 'In exchange for one parsiktum (= 60 litres) of barley and one talent (= 30 kg) of wool which Mutu-Amnanum had sent and which Amat-Samas the daughter of Yakun-harari had received in Sippar, Mutu-Amnanum in Esnunna is in receipt of the value of one parsiktum of barley (and) one talent of wool.'

A single seal was impressed on all sides of the tablet before it was inscribed. The seal shows a framed legend of three lines with an adorant deity above the legend box containing the following text: [m]u-ti-am wa -na-nu-um / [du]mu su-mu-úh ki / [ìr d]a-an-nu-um-ta-ha-az, 'Muti-Amnanum, son of Sumu-Aksak, servant of Dannum-tahaz.' This sealed tablet is an acknowledgment that remittance has been received in Esnunna for commodities previously sent from that city to Sippar, completing a transaction which had begun with a dispatch of goods on credit. The tablet was written and sealed in Esnunna and brought back to Amat-Samas in Sippar by an agent who had paid Mutu-Amnanum on her behalf.

The terminology used to describe the transaction is surprising: saparum is rare for conveying goods in Old Babylonian, and the choice for this verb may suggest that the transaction was part of an established relationship between Mutu-Amnanum and Amat-Samas (a relationship contingent on a steady exchange of messages and courtesies -saparum -as well as appropriate gifts). The counteract, in contrast, is defined by the concept of simum, 'counter value, price', which normally indicates exchanges at a low ceremonial level, but in this context might reveal a deliberate intent of the parties to balance the values of their reciprocal gifts. 64 Neither the substance nor the amount of the counter payment is specified, but simum suggests that an amount of silver, the basic money in ancient Mesopotamia, was handed over in exchange for barley and wool.

These two tablets join CT 8 43c, a purchase contract for a slave from the 18th year of Hammurabi (1775 BC), as the only three documents in the Sippar corpus that are identifiable as having been owned by Amat-Samas, naditum of Samas and daughter of Yakun-harari. 65 They were purchased in Baghdad in 1890 as part of a large collection of predominantly Sippar tablets and their archival context is unclear: conceivably they are stray finds from the residence of Amat-Samas, which was presumably located in Abu Habbah, or perhaps they have survived as part of another archive, at Abu Habbah or Tell ed-Der, if the tablets were moved in antiquity.

This Esnunnean connection sheds some welcome light on an individual whose high status is evident in spite of the few available references. Amat-Samas is first mentioned in the sixth year of Hammurabi (1787 BC) when she appears as a neighbour of a disputed field plot in the vicinity of Abu Habbah. She is not included among its neighbours when the contested sale was first concluded 13 years before, in the 13th year of Sin-muballi † (1800 BC), 66 which implies that she increased her arable holdings over the years and might suggest that her arrival in Sippar should be dated between these two transactions, although this remains speculation. Amat-Samas does not occur any more after the 18th year of Hammurabi (the date of CT 8 43c) but the fact that field plots were identified by her name, and by that of her father, as late as the time of Ammiditana (1683-1647 BC) shows that the Sippar community still remembered them more than a century after their death. 67 The answer to the question why they were held in such esteem may emerge from the examination of the new texts.

It is therefore worthwhile to take a closer look at the contact of Amat-Samas in Esnunna, Mutu-Amnanum the son of Sumu-Aksak. His name is unusual and appears only a few times elsewhere but none of these passages can be shown to allude to the same individual. 68 His 65 This name, always referring to the same individual, appears in the following forms: Period of Hammurabi: ia-ku-un-ha-ra-ri CT 8 43c: 6 (coll. van Koppen); BM 80683: 11; BM 81641: 7 ia-kum-ha-ra-ri CT 48 3: 3 ia-ku-un-ha-ra-ar VS 9 172: 4 Period of Ammiditana: ia-ku-um-ha-ra-ar YOS 13 12: 20 i-ku-un-ha-ra-ri TCL 1 151: 4 Transcribing ia-kùn-ha-ra-ri in CT 48 3: 3 (Streck 2000: 200 s.v. KUM) is not necessary in view of YOS 13 12: 20. 66 Compare CT 48 3: 1-7 (Hammurabi 6, month 8) with Ballerini RSO 2 (1908-09) 539-541 and plate II no. 4 (Sin-muballi † 13). The field is said to be located i-na ba-ma-tim i-ta íd d a-a-hé-gál, which suggests a location near Abu Habbah (see Frayne and Donbaz 1984: 29-30).

67 TCL 1 151 (Ammiditana year 5) is a lease of a field plot in the Nine-Iku-Field bordering on the plot of the 'daughter of Ikun-harari'. 'Amat-Samas naditum of Samas daughter of Yakun-harar' furthermore appears in YOS 13 12: 20 (Ammiditana year 15) but the interpretation of this text is more complicated (see R. Harris, JNES 34 [1975] 294). Its heading states that the text (surviving in two duplicates) is a 'copy of a … list of fields […] in the Field Sut-sa-Aya which was deposited in the house of the daughter of Sulgi' ( 1 gaba-ri mu-da-sá sa x NI a-sà sa […] 2 sa a-gàr su-ut-sad a-a 3 sa i-na é dumu-munus d sul-gi in-na-d[u-ú]), this location being the tomb of a princess who was dedicated as the high priestess of Samas by king Sulgi of Ur (compare AbB 2 65). The list consists of two parts, first a list of fields (with summary in rev 3-7) obtained through exchange (puh) by Sallurum, who bears the title sa é d utu (YOS 13 12: 4, rev 7; CT 8 8b: 4), followed by an enumeration of fields exchanged by Damiq-Marduk (without summary). Amat-Samas features among the historical owners of fields obtained by Sallurum. 68 For the name see RGTC 3 p. 14 and Durand 1991: 91. father Sumu-Aksak has an equally uncommon name but in this case attestations cluster in space and time, encouraging the idea that one and the same person might be under consideration. The following references need to be taken into account:

1 su-mu-úh ki dumu mu-na-wi-rum is the second witness to a sale of a field by king Sin-muballi † to a resident of Kis: VS 13 9: 13 (tablet), Szlechter TJA plate 44 UMM H 56: 13 (case) (Sinmuballi † 12/07/16). 2 su-mu-úh ki ra-bi-a-an zimbir ki (title in CT 45 18 = MHET 2/1 100 only) acts as a judicial authority in three court cases from the archive of the family of Puzur-Aksak from Sippar (Abu Habbah): CT 2 46: 11 (Sin-muballi † 14); CT 2 47: 16 (not dated); CT 45 18 = MHET 2/1 100: 16 (oath by Sin-muballi †). 3 su-mu-úh ki is the father of Mutu-Amnanum: BM 81641 seal (undated); cf. supra p. 165 and 168. 4

su-mu-úh ki is the father of Zimru-hammu: Goetze JCS 11 (1957) 23 no. 10: 14 (date broken). 5

su-mu-úh ki is the sender of a letter found at Sippar addressed to an anonymous 'gentleman whom Marduk has kept in good health', containing an appeal on behalf of one Ibbi-Adad, a merchant from IdamaraÒ: AbB 12 69: 3.

For our interpretation we assume that at least the first four entries refer to one and the same individual who was active in the second decade of the reign of Sin-muballi † and whose son Zimru-hammu pursued a career under Hammurabi. An important new piece of evidence for their biography is provided by the seal legend of his son Mutu-Amnanum, who proclaims himself to be a servant of Dannum-tahaz, the king of Esnunna and a predecessor of Dadusa; this connection allows us to consider the possibility that their family may originate in the kingdom of Esnunna.

Sumu-Aksak is attested during a period of two to three years as a high-ranking servant of Sin-muballi †, first appearing in the 12th regnal year (1801 BC) at the head of a list of witnesses drawn from dignitaries of the Babylonian court who were present when a tract of arable land was sold by the king, 69 and subsequently in the position of chief royal administrator of Sippar, a post which he conceivably held for a brief period of time (including at least part of the 14th year of that king). 70 The available sources hold no evidence for his career before or after these years, but the Esnunnean connection allows us to speculate that he may have been a disgraced political grandee from the kingdom of Esnunna who took refuge in Babylon. Such a course of events would hardly be unique and is paralleled by the fortune of a better-known rabianum of Sippar, Isar-Lim, a servant of Isme-Dagan of Ekallatum who was appointed to the post after he and his master had found asylum at the court of Hammurabi. 71 170 JAARBERICHT "EX ORIENTE LUX" 41 -2008-2009 69 Stol 2002: 735 identified VS 13 9 + Szlechter TJA plate 44 UMM H 56 as a purchase of land by a private individual from the king of Babylon. The text was found at Kis but may have been written at the royal palace in Babylon or elsewhere in the presence of the king. Its list of witnesses begins with the sakkannakkum as the representative of the community where the property was located, followed by high officials, identified by patronymic or title, who attended the transaction as members of the royal entourage. The order of enumeration of witnesses usually reflects their relative rank, which makes Sumu-Aksak son of Munawwirum in the position of second witness the most important court dignitary to be mentioned in the document. 70 Two other rabianum of Sippar are known from the second decade of Sin-muballi †, Awil-Istar in year 12 (CT 48 1: 10) and Abdi-erah in year 14 (VS 9 40: 14 without title, for which see CT 8 1a: 10 and CT 8 4a: rev 14). The question whether Abu Habbah and Tell ed-Der were under the authority of a single rabianum during the reign of Sin-muballi †, or whether each city had a separate officer, will be elaborated elsewhere; if the data is accepted to reflect a single sequence of officials (which seems the most likely explanation of the evidence), then the maximum period of office of Sumu-Aksak as rabianum of Sippar was two years (taking the place of Awil-Istar in year 12 or thereafter and giving way to Abdi-erah in the course of year 14).

Isar-Lim's tenure as royal commissioner at Sippar may have been brief, 72 but his children settled permanently in Sippar and were to play an important part in its administration. 73 This family may serve as a model case for the family of Sumu-Aksak.

The date of the attestations for Sumu-Aksak may also be significant for an explanation of his career along these lines, and is of interest for the chronology of the rulers of Esnunna. The exact dates of most kings of this royal house are still unknown, with the exception of Ipiq-Adad II whose rule of 45 years (according to the Mari Eponym Chronicle) can be linked to the Babylonian king list via the list of Assyrian eponyms: conceivably he died in the second or third year of Sin-muballi † (1811-1810 BC, see conclusion). The length of the reign of his son and successor Naram-Sin is unknown but no more than 10 year names can with confidence be attributed to this monarch. If this were the full length of his reign, then his death would have occurred in the 12th or 13th year of Sin-muballi † (1801-1800 BC), which is the time of Sumu-Aksak's sojourn in Babylonia. The question should therefore be asked whether his departure may have had something to do with the death of his royal master.

The sequence of rulers between Naram-Sin and Dadusa has not yet been established with certainty. While most scholars assume that Dannum-tahaz was succeeded by Iqis-Tispak, there is in actual fact no evidence that can be marshalled in support of this order, or for that matter of the alternative sequence Iqis-Tispak -Dannum-tahaz. [START_REF]A sequence Dannum-tahaz -Iqis-Tispak was followed by Wu 1994: 87 and Charpin 2004a[END_REF] The new data however invites us to consider the second option. Wu presented prosopographical evidence that requires to assign yet another ruler to the period between Naram-Sin and Dadusa: Ibbi-Sin, known from two tablets bearing his accession formula that are thought to come from Ishchali. 75 He also called attention to the fact that Iqis-Tispak betrays his non-royal origin in his brick inscription and considered him a military commander who took hold of the throne at a time of political confusion. 76 Both facts together suggest that we have to allow for a single period (rather than two) of profound crisis at the Esnunnean court, involving at least two successful claimants to the throne and conceivably lasting for two years, if not longer. 77 If this episode is assigned to the immediate aftermath of Naram-Sin's reign, then this would allow to explain why Sumu-Aksak had to take flight to Babylon -by association with the 'wrong' faction -and account for the fact that his son Mutu-Amnanum could again serve the next king: the reign of Dannum-tahaz would have brought a restoration to grace for their family.

There is no explicit evidence for a relationship between Amat-Samas and her father Yakunharari and the family of Sumu-Aksak, other than the fact that she and a son of the latter were engaged in a ceremonial exchange of goods (notwithstanding the 'commercial' overtones of the transaction), which is by itself significant enough given what is known about the duty of families to care for their naditum relatives. She was obviously also closely connected to the Esnunnean court under Dadusa, as is revealed by the fact that government officials looked after her herds, and the moment of her appearance in Sippar is consistent with the idea that she might have been dedicated to Samas once Sumu-Aksak and his following had arrived in Babylon. Yakun-harari was therefore quite likely one of them, and -in view of the fact that his name was remembered for at least one hundred years -certainly an important figure. More evidence is however required before anything concrete can be said about this individual. 78 Sumu-Aksak stopped acting as mayor of Sippar in the 14th year of Sin-muballi † (1799 BC). It is impossible to tell whether he died or perhaps returned to Esnunna along with his son Mutu-Amnanum, but another son, Zimru-hammu, is known as the buyer of a large plot of arable land near Sippar79 and may have joined the service of Hammurabi of Babylon at a later date. The following attestations for this name must be considered: With several important public figures in this period sharing this name, [START_REF]Zimru-hammu the son of Sumu-Amim and servant of Samsi-Addu (OBTR 250 seal 4) = lú Hazakannim ki[END_REF] it is not certain that all this refers to the same individual. Charpin suggested that attestations (2)-( 4) could refer to one and the same member of Hammurabi's entourage in the years after the fall of Ibal-pi-El II of Esnunna, [START_REF] Charpin | 87 Charpin 1985: 58-59 distinguished eight or nine year names for Naram-Sin, whereas Wu 1994: 85-86 recognized ten year names on the basis of more evidence[END_REF] and the date that can be suggested for attestation (1) on the basis of its prosopography places it in roughly the same period. This chronological proximity encourages the idea that (1)-( 4) indeed relate to one and the same individual, Zimru-hammu the son of Sumu-Aksak, but no chronological frame is available for attestations (5)-( 6), which might still refer to another man. The sources do not help to elucidate how a son of Sumu-Aksak came to serve the Babylonians for a second time, but it is tempting to believe that it was the next crisis in the history of Esnunna -this time the assault by Elam and its allies in Hammurabi's 27th year (1766 BC)84 -that drove the family once again to the court of the Babylonian king. This is as far as the available evidence allows us to trace this interesting and clearly influential family. New material, or a better understanding of old texts, will no doubt allow to review some propositions, and hopefully shed light on a potential link still left unexplored: what was commemorated by the year name of Iqis-Tispak (note 78)?

Conclusion

This contribution has shown the importance of the gagûm of Samas for interactions between Sippar and the realm of Esnunna: each of three texts with year names of kings of Esnunna arrived in Sippar thanks to the presence of naditum from the region. A closer look has revealed that Samas devotees owned real estate (text 2) and movable property (text 3) in their places of origin, and were engaged in credit transactions with their relatives outside of Babylonia, from whom they obtained indentured labor (text 1). Young women were normally dedicated to Samas for the social and practical reasons considered in the introduction, but the wider context of text 3 has shown that exceptional political circumstances -in this case exile in Babylonia -can lie beneath the dedication of certain naditum. Lastly it has been established that texts 1 and 2 come from the Middle Euphrates region, which makes them valuable witnesses for the scribal customs of an area that is otherwise poorly documented.

The relative chronology is the last aspect to consider. The recent publication of a new eponym list from Kültepe (KEL G, Günbattı 2008) puts the chronology of the kings of Esnunna on a slightly firmer footing, for it seems to reveal that 33 or 32 years lie between the supposed death of Ipiq-Adad II and the accession of Ibal-pi-El II. This period is taken up by the reigns of Naram-Sin, Dannum-tahaz and Dadusa, and by a period of political instability connected with the names of the rulers Iqis-Tispak and Ibbi-Sin, and possibly others. As long as the duration of these reigns is unknown, the chronological division of the dynasty and its synchronism with the kings of Babylon will remain moot but it may be useful to sketch the options.

KEL G presents us with the following facts:

[a] The last mention of Ipiq-Adad II in the Mari Eponym Chronicle is associated with limum Inib-Istar (B 25) and may record his death (but note that the text is broken). 85 This eponym appears as no. 48 in KEL G, and can be tied to the king list of Babylonia via the eponym ™ab-Òilli-Assur (KEL G 83), when Samsi-Addu died at the end of the eponymal year (corresponding to the first half of Hammurabi's 18th year). KEL G 83 = Hammurabi years 17-18 means KEL G 48 = Sin-muballi † years 2-3.

[b] The distance between KEL G 48 and KEL G 80-81 (limum Awiliya or Nimer-Sin, corresponding to Hammurabi year 15 // Ibal-pi-El II year 1) 86 is 33, respectively 32, years.

[c] It should however be noted that the list of names between KEL G 69 and KEL G 79 is broken and the consecutive numbering of the eponyms over the break is still provisional; this means that more, or less, years may have to be situated in the periods defined in [a] and [b].

None of the texts discussed in this article has yielded any 'hard' chronological facts, but they allow to consider the following propositions: In the absence of a king list or date list, the length of the reigns of kings of Esnunna has to be reconstructed on the basis of the number of distinct year names that can be attributed to each of them. Any result of such exercise is inexorably subjective as long as it remains unclear how many distinct year names are represented by the dating formulas that have survived, and more dates without mention of the royal name may still belong to any one of these kings. We propose the following estimate of the minimal and maximal duration of their reigns on the basis of the available facts, deliberately refraining from a detailed review of the evidence: It should be noted that in case of irregular successions (which may apply to any of the three kings positioned in the middle), it cannot be excluded that alternative year names were used within the same calendar year.

If we accept the death of Ipiq-Adad II in KEL G 48 and the eponym numbering of Günbattı (2008), and work with propositions [e] and [f], we get the following chronological table (with two columns to reflect the uncertainty whether Ipiq-Adad died in the first or in the second half of the eponymal year). This reconstruction does not allow for more than 9 or 10 years for Naram-Sin (the minimal length of his reign), and shows that the current length of the reigns of Dannum-tahaz (4 or 5 years) and Dadusa (8 to 10 years) is insufficient to fill the gap of 19 years following the threeyear period of Naram-Sin's immediate successors until the accession of Ibal-pi-El II; either the full set of year names of these rulers has not yet been recovered, and/or more years must be assigned to the immediate successors of Naram-Sin. The period of the reign of Naram-Sin will gain an extra year for every additional name that may have to be inserted in the break of KEL G ([c]).

As to [d], in this reconstruction no less than 9 years fall between the dates of BDHP 38 and CT 8 42b (because at least two 'Ditch of Yabliya' years should follow 'Conquest of Rapiqum' before the end of the reign of Ipiq-Adad II); one wonders whether this would be too long in view of the connection detected between the texts. Fewer names in the break of KEL G ([c]) would reduce this period but this is difficult to reconcile with the Mari evidence that covers the break. Alternatively, Ipiq-Adad II may not have died in limum Inib-Istar ([a]), which would also shorten the interval (and lengthen his already impressive reign beyond 45 years). Because it is impossible to reduce the length of the reign of Naram-Sin to under nine years (in view of the year names attributed to this king), propositions [e] and [f] will in either case have to be reconsidered.

  Seal A: one impression on BM 82498: LeE; two impressions on BM 82499: LeE top, UE left; = Teissier 1998 no. 253 (left side part of the scene) + Teissier 1998 no. 276 (right side part of the scene). Seal B: three impressions on BM 82499: LeE middle, LoE (2x); = Teissier 1998 no. 301. (Seal C: there is space for one more sealing at the bottom of the LeE of BM 82499 but no traces are visible.) Seal D: one impression on BM 82499: UE right; = Teissier 1998 no. 385.

  More tablets from the 164 JAARBERICHT "EX ORIENTE LUX" 41 -2008-2009 50 Kraus 1952-53: 322-323 with note 18 on p. 323. 51 In CBTBM 8 (1988) 237 the date of BM 80683 was cautiously identified as a year name of Apil-Sin (the one appearing in ninth position in the date list LIH 101, and in eighth place in the list Al-Rawi 1993: 24; discussed by Al-Rawi 1993: 27 and Horsnell 1999: II 80-81). 52 This year name was discussed by Saporetti 1999: 439-444 II6B. Note that his dates II6Bb-c (p. 440) cannot belong to Dadusa because the tablets bear sealings of servants of Ibal-pi-El II (IM 52276 and IM 52416, see DeJong Ellis 1985: 74 note 58): they refer to the 8th year name of Ibal-pi-El II. For date II6Bg (p. 442: mu alan sùd kù-GI = OBTIV 93) see note 57; for date II6Bi (p. 443: mu alan kù-GI = IM 52561) see note 56.

  [d] A loan dated to the year 'Ipiq-Adad (II) conquered Rapiqum' was still legally binding in Sinmuballi † year 8; [e] Sin-muballi † year 12 coincides with, or follows, the last year of Naram-Sin;[f] The sequence of Esnunna kings is: Naram-Sin -Iqis-Tispak (& Ibbi-Sin) -Dannum-tahaz -Dadusa.

Bibliography

  Ahmad, A. K. A., 1964, Old Babylonian Loan Contracts in the Iraq Museum from Tell Al-Dhiba'i and Tell Harmal (MA Thesis University of Baghdad). Al-Rawi, F., 1993, A New Old Babylonian Date List from Sippir with Year Names of Apil-Sîn and Sînmuballi †, ZA 83: 22-31. Al-Rawi, F. and Dalley, S., 2000, Old Babylonian Texts from Private Houses at Abu Habbah, Ancient Sippir (Edubba 7, London). Baqir, T., 1949a, Date-Formulae & Date-Lists from Harmal, Sumer 5: 34-84. -, 1949b, 1. Supplement to the Date-Formula from Harmal, Sumer 5: 136-140. Charpin, D., 1985, Données nouvelles sur la chronologie des souverains d'Esnunna, 51-66 in: J.-M. Durand and J.-R. Kupper (eds.), Miscellanea Babylonica. Mélanges offerts à Maurice Birot (Paris).

  T11 C9: for ana ittisunu see Stol 1996: 420. T22 C23: The name of the scribe is cited by Harris 1975: 301 and a scribe named Samas-tappasu

is also attested in MHET 2/1 43: C21 (Sabium oath) and ARN 162: 9' (Sin-muballi † 19). This is almost certainly not the same person as the scribe who wrote BDHP 38 because of the atypical use of in-sar. The term appears as a title in T22 but may be interpreted as a verbal form in C23, because PN in-sar, 'PN wrote', appears elsewhere in colophons of literary texts, e.g. BIN 2 36 VI bottom and Baqir Sumer 2 (1947) plate after p. 30 VII bottom (from Tell Harmal). T25: Elenum is a month name common to the calendars of Esnunna (month II) and Sippar (month IV according to Greengus 2001: 261).

  1 zi-im-ru-ha-am-mu son of Sumu-Aksak buys a very large plot of land (more than 8 bur, nearly 51 ha) from the children of Eribam: Goetze JCS 11 (1957) 23 no. 10: 13 (date broken, ca. third decade of Hammurabi). 80 2 A servant of the son of zi-im-ra-ha-mu acts as messenger between the Lu-Dingirmah and the naditum Amat-Samas daughter of Masum: 81 AbB 1 130: 20. 3 zi-im-ra-ha-am-mu receives Elamite messengers in Babylon: ARMT 26 368 (= LAPO 17 584): 30. 4 Fragmentary passage mentioning [..]-mi dumu zi-im-ra-ha-am-mu in the context of a diplomatic mission on behalf of the king of Babylon: ARMT 26 370: 30'. 5 zi-im-ri-am-mu is the author of a fragmentary letter of unknown provenance: AbB 8 94: 4. 6 Passage of a 'lady' (awiltum) of z[i-i]m-r[a]-h[a]-mu should not be denied, according to a letter of Nur-Samas to Ataya found at Sippar: AbB 12 162: 5.

Elunum, Abum, Kinunum, Tamhirum, Nabrû and Mammitum (Greengus 2001: 267). Of common stock is also the calendar of Samsi-Addu that shares seven month names with the one from Esnunna, see Charpin 2004b:

The calendar(s) to which these month names belong can be traced back to the end of the third millennium BC(Cohen 1993: 248-249 and Widell 2003: 5-6).3 This was pointed out by several scholars (e.g. M.Birot, BiOr 30 [1973] 64) but has not yet been analysed in full except for the genre of loan contracts(Skaist 1994: 240-241).4 See Charpin 2004a: 31 for Akkad denoting the kingdom of Esnunna as well as Babylon in a Mari source; Dercksen 2004: 164 argued that northern Babylonia and Esnunna are similarly subsumed under the term Akkad in the Old Assyrian manner of speaking. The location of Akkad was recently discussed by[START_REF] Westenholz | The Old Akkadian Period. History and Culture[END_REF]: 31-34 and Reade 2002: 269 and, with different results, by Frayne 2004: 112-114. 5 Illustrated, for example, by the veneration of Anunitum of Akkad in Tell ed-Der(Westenholz 1999: 31), or the 'sons of Akkad' as a military class in the kingdom of Esnunna (F.van Koppen, RlA 11/5-6 [2007] 491). The reception of Sargonic royal names by kings of Assur(Sargon and Naram-Sin; Veenhof 2003: 44 and 46) and Esnunna (Naram-Sin) is by itself no indication for the survival of local memories because the Sargonic kings were a universal model for kingship in the second millennium BC.

JAARBERICHT "EX ORIENTELUX" 41 -2008LUX" 41 - -2009 6 6 Letters from Tell ed-Der and Esnunna, see[START_REF] Whiting | Old Babylonian Letters from Tell Asmar[END_REF]: 29-33, Wu 1994: 26-36 and Charpin 2004a: 91- 100. 7 In addition to the aforementioned letters, contemporary economic records from Tell ed-Der indicate the presence of emissaries from Né-re-eb-ta-ni (probably Nerebtum, TIM 7 160: 11´) and Satlas (TIM 7 154: 8, see Harris 1976: 148 note 5) in town.

But note that the text was not included in the study of Old Babylonian loan contracts by[START_REF] Skaist | The Old Babylonian Loan Contract[END_REF]

Two detached fragments of the case are presented in copy. The transliteration has been established through independent collation of the originals by both authors.

Note thatHarris (1964: 125) suggested that a sister of this naditum, by the name of Arnabatum, appears in CT 8 43c. This reference is wrong (Arnabatum is a daughter of Siyyatum, CT 8 43c: 22-23) and no further references to Eristi-Samas daughter of Sîn-rim-Urim have been published.

JAARBERICHT "EX ORIENTE LUX" 41 -2008-200964 Zaccagnini 1983: 220-225.

It is tempting to identify him with ia-ku-un-[..] mentioned, probably as an enemy, in a fragmentary date formula of [i]-qí-is-d tispak(Greengus 1979: 32 no. 45 and[START_REF] Hill | Old Babylonian Public Buildings in the Diyala Region (OIP 98[END_REF] Delougaz 1990: 95). The archaeological context of the tablet containing the date (Ish. 34-T.87 = IM 31336, see Gentili 2004: 272) was discussed byHill and Jacobsen (in Hill, Jacobsen and Delougaz 1990: 42), from which follows that its find spot (on the period I-II floor of courtyard 2-Q.31) does not demand that it be assigned to the early occupation of the building. It is therefore certainly possible that this year name belongs to a successor of Dannum-tahaz but it is sensible to refrain from further speculation until the tablet has been fully deciphered and

published.79 Attestation (1) below. It wasHarris (1975: 215) who identified the father of the buyer as the

mayor of Sippar.80 The field belongs collectively to seven children of Eribam but is sold by five of them, four of which appear in dated sources. The temporal range of the attestations of the elder and younger siblings overlap in the third decade

Charpin and Ziegler 2003: 212-214 § 3.3.6.

For the data about Ipiq-Adad II in the Mari Eponym Chronicle seeVeenhof 2003: 45 and 62.

kù-babbar is-qú-ul 9 li-ba-[su †ú]-ub 10 gis g[an-na í]b-ta-bal 11 inim-b[i a]l-til 12 [a-na wa-ar-o]-at u 4 -mi 13 [o o o o o] x […] (Perhaps one line at end of Obv, x line(s) on LoE, and perhaps one line at beginning of Rev broken

x 3' igi nu-úr-ia dumu za-ri-qum 4' igi nu-úr-ì-lí-su dumu za-alza-lum 5' igi im-gur-d suen dumu-a-ni 6' igi d suen-se-mi dumu is-me-èr-ra 7' igi bur-nu-nu igi sud mar-tu 8' dumu-mes dingir-mu-tab-bil 9' igi sú-ka-lum igi e-te-lum 10' igi lú-d en-líl-lá 11' dumu-<mes> an-pí-d suen 12' igi ú-Òur-pí-d suen 13' dumu ma-nu-um-ki-d suen 14' igi i-bi-d nu-mus-da (UE and LeE uninscribed).