Daily life and sociabilities in Al-Yahudu: Judean deportees under the Neobabylonian and Achaemenid Empires (6th and 5th centuries BCE)

• Grant number: 22/12649-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: April 01, 2023
• End date: April 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Aparecido Rede
• Grantee: Enzo Snitovsky Onodera
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/06495-3 - Daily life in Rural Mesopotamia: a study of West Semitic deported communities in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

This research aims to study a group of cuneiform tablets from the rural village of Al-Yahudu and its neighboring settlements during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Partially published by Laurie Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch, these tablets record the daily life of Judean deportees after the Babylonian military expeditions into the Levant in the early 6th century BCE. These cuneiform sources are full of relational information and register, among other things, land lease agreements, commercial contracts, and taxation activities. Therefore, this research seeks to analyze the networks of sociabilities built by the Judeans over the years to comprehend what necessary adaptations this community had to undergo over the decades. We aim to understand the strategies developed by the Judeans to overcome the initial years of vulnerability after the forced migrations. At the same time, as we work with a group of deportees, we seek to study the social networks built by the Judeans and registered by the tablets to analyze the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires from the perspective of a subaltern population. Therefore, we may explore the social importance of the deportees in the very organization of the empires of this historical period.