Private ownership absolute in historical periods
In historical times no such conditions prevail. Doubtless the tribal ownership had become theoretically transferred to the god, or to the town. That the town had a [pg 187] theoretical personality of its own is clear enough from the oaths sworn to confirm a sale. Men swore by the gods, the king, and also by Sippara, or Kar Sippara. But there is no indication that points to the god, or the town, or the king as having any power to intervene to prevent a sale, or to claim payment for consent. It is clear that the land was sold subject to its dues, and they were many. But the private ownership, subject to such reservation, was absolute. The one danger to a purchaser was that the family of the seller should claim a right of redemption and annul the sale. Against this the seller undertook to indemnify him.
Right to retain ancestral estates
Exact statements as to the rights possessed by the family to reclaim land sold by a member of the family are not to be found, but they are to be inferred with certainty from a few notices which we have. Thus,[467] a man claimed a certain plot of land as ancestral domain which two others had sold. There are several such cases among the legal decisions of the First Dynasty of Babylon. In most of the Assyrian deeds of sale we have a long list of representatives of the seller, who are explicitly bound not to interfere and attempt to upset the sale.[468] Their right existed or they would not be called upon to enter into a contract nor to insist upon it.
Different kinds of real property
From the point of view of the ancient Babylonian, as from that of the modern lawyer, there was a great similarity about all classes of real property. The deeds of sale or conveyances, as well as the leases, treated them with much the same formula. It was the land which was the main consideration. It was as land, built upon indeed, but essentially as land, that the house was sold. The house is rarely described by what to modern views would be its most important features, the number of stories, rooms, conveniences, and the like. Instead its area was stated. This is remarkable, as we do not buy houses by the area. We [pg 188] need not suppose that the building actually covered all the land sold. In fact, we often see that it had a garden. But it was bîtu epšu, a “built-on plot” of land, according to the Babylonian conveyancer. Perhaps there was in this usage a recollection of how fast the Babylonian house of sun-dried brick sank down to a mound of clay, perhaps, too, a far-off echo of the nomad's scorn for the town-dweller, in both cases a recognition that the land was the one thing permanent, the one thing that could not “run away.”
Terms used in descriptions of real property
The plot of land was the bîtu, Hebrew beth, represented by the Sumerian Ê. When it had the additional advantage of a house upon it, it was bîtu epšu, a “built-on plot.” Gradually the edifice, in towns at least, absorbed the whole significance, and in common parlance bîtu meant a “house,” but in legal phraseology it always retained its inclusive meaning of the plot of land. Even as late as the Assyrian Empire it retained some shade of a still earlier meaning, that of a plot, parcel, or share, just what it meant when the first settlers divided the land among them. Thus one might use bîtu of a “lot” of slaves, or of a lot of land including its slaves and cattle. That bîtu is to be referred to a root banû, “to make,” may still be true, though banû cannot have come to mean “build” when bîtu was formed from it. If bîtu was originally the “house,” perhaps only a tent-house, then it could mean all that constituted the house, the man's house in a wider sense, as in tribe names, like Bît Adini or the phrase, “House of Israel.” But bîtu, when used of a house, does not carry with it the implication of bricks and mortar, only of a fixed site occupied for dwelling. The edifice was implied by the addition epšu, marking the site “built upon.” So a house was “landed property”; land was of various sorts, one of which is “built on land.” To be accurate one must also specify the kind of building.
The field was called eḳlu (compare Acel-dama, “the field of blood”), denoted by the Sumerian A-ŠAG-GA. The term does not denote open waste land, but a cultivated plot. Indeed, it is probable that its Sumerian name implies “irrigation.” In any case it was fenced, if only by a raised ridge; it was cultivated and watched over; the birds were scared away, robbers and stray animals driven off. So much at least is expressed in as many words in the undertakings of tenants to treat a field properly. The field was also bîtu as land, usually “bîtu, so much eḳlu.”
The garden was reckoned as land, but here a fuller specification was needed. For a plot of land, a garden, kirû was not exact enough. It was usual to designate further of what sort it was, whether vegetable garden, orchard, or palm-grove. The scribe would even add “planted with such and such a crop.” The term might include vineyards. In many cases the actual number of bushes, or fruit-trees, or vine-stocks, would be named. But it was always primarily land, and as such bîtu, with the qualifications enumerated.