The lease of an estate for a term exceeding a few years was always rare. One is found on a tablet which is one of the most interesting of all those supposed to be of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The script and the language recall Assyrian types most vividly and it is full of non-Babylonian names, which suggest Hittite, or even Armenian, origin. Unfortunately, it is not dated. It might well have been found at Kalaḫ, or Asshur, and belong to somewhat early Assyrian times, perhaps before Assyrian independence of Babylonia. Not one person named in it occurs in the other tablets of the Bu. 91-5-9 Collection—a thing which cannot be said of another of them. If this was really found with them, we can only suppose that centralization was carried to such a pitch that important legal documents, even when executed as far away as Assyria, or Mesopotamia proper, had to be sent in duplicate to the capital of Babylonia. Or was it possible that the principal party came to the capital with this document in his possession, deposited it in the temple archives there, and died, leaving no one to reclaim it.
Dr. T. G. Pinches gave a transcription and translation of the text in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1897, pp. 589 ff., with many interesting and valuable comments:
Six homers of corn [land] belonging to Ishtar-KI-TIL-LA, son of Teḫip-TIL-LA, Kibîa, son of Palîa, Urḫîa, son of Itḫip-sharru, and Irishenni, son of Iddin-PU-SI, have taken for three homers of land, to harvest and transport. As long as Ishtar-KI-TIL-LA lives, Kibîa, Urḫîa, and Irishenni shall transport the crop of three homers of land and shall deliver the same in caldrons. If Kibîa, Urḫîa, and Irishenni do not harvest and transport and deliver the same in caldrons, and the corn perish, they shall pay in full one mina of silver and one mina of gold to Ishtar-KI-TIL-LA. Each is surety for the other. Before Aḫli-Têshup, son of Taishenni; before Ukuia, son of Geshḫai; before Shellu, son of Wantia; before Kushshu, son of Ḥuluḳḳu; before Durar-Têshup, son of Gil-Têshup; before Aḫli-Babu, the ḫazânu, son of Nubananu; before Zinu, son of Kiannibu, the scribe.
The names of the witnesses seem to be North Semitic
The names of the witnesses are here given in full because of their exceptional interest. Until we are sure of his nationality it is scarcely safe to suppose the principal's name was really pronounced Ishtar-kitilla—the latter part of the name may well be an ideogram. The name of his father ending also in TIL-LA suggests that that group of signs is separable. If so, the signs read Ishtar-KI may perhaps be ideographic also. It is evident that Teḫip is from the same root as Itḫip, and the form looks Semitic.
Kibîa, Palîa, Urḫîa are Semitic, but Irishenni and Taishenni remind one of the Erisinni, of the son of U'alli, King of the Mannai in Ashurbânipal's time. Still, neither can be said to be non-Semitic with certainty, when we recall the many names ending in enni or inni formed from verbs and compare the names formed from erêšu, erêsu. Names containing the name of the god Teshup were known long ago, as Ḥu-Teshup, Kali-Teshup, Kili-Teshup, where the other element of the name does not seem to be Semitic. Egyptian records give us other compounds of the name of this [pg 280] god, who was the sky-god among the pre-Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia
Here we have Aḫli-Teshup, Gil-Teshup, and Durar-Teshup. With the former, Professor Hommel compares Aḫlib-shar. With the next compare the Mitanni name Gilîa, also Gilûa. Aḫli-Babu is a closer parallel.
Of the other names, Shellu, Kushshu, Ḥuluḳḳu, and Zinu seem to be Semitic; at any rate they occur frequently, or in cognate forms, well known among the Assyrians and Babylonians. The others are all very unfamiliar. We are as yet so imperfectly acquainted with the onomastics of the nations surrounding the Semites that it is hazardous to attempt to locate these people. Supposing them to be all of one race, they may belong to a colony settled near Sippara, but the whole style of the language is so unlike the Sippara documents that we can hardly suppose that to be the case.