Daily life in Rural Mesopotamia: a study of West Semitic deported communities in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE

• Grant number: 23/06495-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: January 15, 2024
• End date: July 14, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Aparecido Rede
• Grantee: Enzo Snitovsky Onodera
• Supervisor: Julien Monerie
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Archéologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité (ArScAn), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/12649-0 - Daily life and sociabilities in Al-Yahudu: Judean deportees under the Neobabylonian and Achaemenid Empires (6th and 5th centuries BCE), BP.MS

Abstract

In this research, I study the rural villages of Al-Yahudu, Bit-Abi-râm, Bit-Nashar and their neighboring settlements during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. I focus on tablets from CUSAS 29 and BaAr 6, records of the daily life of Judeans and other West Semitic groups deported after the Babylonian military expeditions to the Levant on the early 6th century BCE. These tablets are full of relational data and information about tax collection, land lease agreements and commercial contracts. In that sense, I study the social ties built by these deported populations to understand the necessary adaptations these communities had to undergo after surviving the forced migrations. I wish to analyze the strategies developed by deported populations to overcome initial vulnerabilities caused by the violence of displacement. At the same time, this research focus on the importance of deportations and deportees to the Empires of this historical period. As I work with groups of deportees allocated in rural areas, I analyze the social and economic mechanisms that structured this environment to explore the complex relationship between the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Empires, the local elites and the deported communities during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. (AU)