The Aramaic Legal Tradition: customary law reflected in contracts and other documents

阿拉姆语法律传统：合同和其他文件中反映的习惯法

• 批准号: AH/F005210/1
• 负责人: John Healey
• 金额: $ 4.42万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FF005210%2F1
• 关键词: Aramaic; Legal; Tradition; customary; law

The heyday of Aramaic extended from the period of the Assyrian Empire to early Islamic times (when Aramaic began to be supplanted by Arabic). As the lingua franca of much of the Middle East it was the main language of commerce and law. Until relatively recently the only corpus of legal documents in Aramaic (real estate and slave sale contracts, mortgage documents, etc.) was from Persian-ruled Egypt of the fifth century BCE. On the basis of these Egyptian documents Y. Muffs in his Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri from Elephantine (1963) was able to situate the Aramaic legal formulary and praxis in the context of other ancient Near Eastern legal traditions (Egypt and Mesopotamia). Newly published discoveries have not overturned his conclusions, but they have extended the database so much that a complete re-evaluation has become necessary. They extend the evidence of the Aramaic legal tradition from the seventh century BCE to the third CE. These newer documentary materials are as follows:(1) Seventh century BCE clay tablets bearing Aramaic texts, often attached as summaries to cuneiform documents. (2) The fourth century BCE Samaria papyri, mostly slave sales and real estate conveyances. (3) The first/second century CE 'Cave of Letters' documents and related Judaean Desert texts (two sub-categories, the Jewish Aramaic legal texts and the Nabataean Aramaic legal texts: the Nabataean materials provide us with the first extensive documentary evidence of Nabataean law).(4) The third century CE Syriac legal parchments (one a slave sale, the others connected with mortgages and loans). All previous studies of the legal tradition either ignore later developments (after Elephantine) or were published before the newer texts came to light. The present project seeks to analyse the individual documents of the corpora listed above in terms of genres (real estate and slave sales, for example) and their formularies (subjective v. objective language, for example), their different protective strategies (appeals, etc.) and their contexts of legal praxis (including physical arrangements for witnessing, sealing, etc.). Comparisons with cuneiform and to some extent Egyptian law, and with Greek and Roman law are needed to elucidate the level of indebtedness of these Aramaic texts to the major legal traditions of the Near East. This comparison is ultimately focussed on an attempt to establish on a clear basis the characteristics of the Aramaic legal tradition. The overall research question is whether Aramaic law was simply a secondary offshoot from cuneiform law which in due course underwent Hellenization and Romanization, or whether it can be understood as independent (even if influenced by outside forces).

阿拉姆语的鼎盛时期从亚述帝国时期一直延续到伊斯兰时代早期（当时阿拉姆语开始被阿拉伯语取代）。作为中东大部分地区的弗兰卡，它是商业和法律的主要语言。直到最近，阿拉姆语的唯一法律的文件（真实的地产和奴隶销售合同，抵押文件等）是公元前世纪波斯统治下的埃及根据这些埃及文件Y。穆夫斯在他的《来自大象的阿拉姆法律的纸莎草研究》（1963年）中，能够将阿拉姆法律的公式和实践与其他古代近东法律的传统（埃及和美索不达米亚）联系起来。新发表的发现并没有推翻他的结论，但他们已经扩展了数据库，以至于有必要进行全面的重新评估。他们扩展了阿拉姆法律的传统的证据从公元前七世纪到第三CE。这些较新的文献资料如下：（1）公元前世纪的粘土片，上面有阿拉姆语文本，通常作为楔形文字文件的摘要。(2)公元前世纪撒玛利亚的纸莎草纸，主要是奴隶买卖和真实的地产买卖。(3)公元世纪第一/第二个“信件洞穴”文件和相关的犹太沙漠文本（两个子类，犹太阿拉姆法律的文本和纳巴泰阿拉姆法律的文本：纳巴泰材料为我们提供了纳巴泰法律的第一个广泛的文献证据）。(4)第三个世纪的叙利亚语法律的羊皮纸（一个是奴隶销售，其他的与抵押和贷款有关）。所有以前对法律的传统的研究要么忽略了后来的发展（在《大象》之后），要么是在新的文本出现之前发表的。本项目力求从体裁（例如，真实的房地产和奴隶买卖）及其公式（例如，主观语言与客观语言）、其不同的保护战略（上诉等）等方面分析上述语料库中的个别文件。及其法律的实践背景（包括见证、盖章等的实际安排）。需要与楔形文字进行比较，并在一定程度上与埃及法律以及希腊和罗马法律进行比较，以阐明这些阿拉姆文本对近东主要法律的传统的依赖程度。这种比较最终集中在试图建立一个明确的基础上的特点阿拉姆法律的传统。整个研究的问题是，阿拉姆法是否仅仅是楔形文字法的一个次要分支，楔形文字法在适当的时候经历了希腊化和罗马化，或者它是否可以被理解为独立的（即使受到外部力量的影响）。