Veiling in Ancient Near Eastern Legal Contexts

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_chapter_6215
dc.contributor.author	Fales Frederick Mario
dc.title	Veiling in Ancient Near Eastern Legal Contexts
dc.type	Chapter
dc.language.iso	en
dc.description.abstract	Particularly interesting textual evidence on the use of the veil in ancient Mesopotamia comes from 15th-14th century BC Assyria. No comprehensive code of laws has reached us from this age, but only a collection of 14 tablets, which are named ad hoc “Middle Assyrian Laws”, from the religious and political capital Aššur. Veiling was prescribed for appearances in public of married women, even if widows, but also applied to the vaster class of women who were ‘Assyrian’, i.e. of free status and native-born. On the other hand, prostitutes had no right to wear a veil, and severe punishments were foreseen for transgression; and the same applied to slave women. These harsh rulings on the veil and other matters in the “Middle Assyrian Laws” do not, curiously enough, find counterparts in the contemporaneous legal deeds, which show women endowed with a much more liberal status. Perhaps the “Laws” reflected normative codifications applying to the stricter moral and intellectual ‘climate’ of the city of Aššur, dominated by its temple and royal palace.
dc.relation.ispartof	Antiquity Studies
dc.relation.ispartof	Studi orientali
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.issued	2021-08-30
dc.dateAccepted	2021-08-03
dc.dateSubmitted	2021-07-01
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-522-3/veiling-in-ancient-near-eastern-legal-contexts/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/978-88-6969-521-6/006
dc.identifier.issn	2610-8828
dc.identifier.eissn	2610-9344
dc.identifier.isbn	978-88-6969-522-3
dc.identifier.eisbn	978-88-6969-521-6
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
item.fulltext	with fulltext
item.grantfulltext	open
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Ancient Mesopotamia
dc.subject	Ancient Mesopotamia
dc.subject	Coeval documents
dc.subject	Coeval documents
dc.subject	Harsh enalties
dc.subject	Harsh enalties
dc.subject	Legal provisions
dc.subject	Legal provisions
dc.subject	Middle Assyrian Period
dc.subject	Middle Assyrian Period
dc.subject	Veil
dc.subject	Veil

Chapter
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Veiling in Ancient Near Eastern Legal Contexts

Frederick Mario Fales Università degli Studi di Udine, Italia

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abstract

Particularly interesting textual evidence on the use of the veil in ancient Mesopotamia comes from 15th-14th century BC Assyria. No comprehensive code of laws has reached us from this age, but only a collection of 14 tablets, which are named ad hoc “Middle Assyrian Laws”, from the religious and political capital Aššur. Veiling was prescribed for appearances in public of married women, even if widows, but also applied to the vaster class of women who were ‘Assyrian’, i.e. of free status and native-born. On the other hand, prostitutes had no right to wear a veil, and severe punishments were foreseen for transgression; and the same applied to slave women. These harsh rulings on the veil and other matters in the “Middle Assyrian Laws” do not, curiously enough, find counterparts in the contemporaneous legal deeds, which show women endowed with a much more liberal status. Perhaps the “Laws” reflected normative codifications applying to the stricter moral and intellectual ‘climate’ of the city of Aššur, dominated by its temple and royal palace.

Published

Aug. 30, 2021

Accepted

Aug. 3, 2021

Submitted

July 1, 2021

Language

ISBN (PRINT)

978-88-6969-522-3

ISBN (EBOOK)

978-88-6969-521-6

Keywords: Veil • Harsh enalties • Middle Assyrian Period • Ancient Mesopotamia • Legal provisions • Coeval documents

permalink: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-521-6/006

Copyright: © 2021 Frederick Mario Fales. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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