A day in the life of an ancient Babylonian business mogul Soraya Field Fiorio
As dawn breaks in the Babylonian city
of Sippar,
Beltani receives an urgent visit
from her brother.
It’s 1762 B.C.E.,
during the reign of King Hammurabi.
Beltani is a naditu—
a priestess and businesswoman,
promised to the temple at birth.
At puberty, she changed her name
and gained her elevated naditu status
in a ceremony where a priest
examined the entrails
of a sacrificed animal for omens.
The naditu are an esteemed group drawn
from Babylonia’s most affluent families.
Though the rules are different for naditu
in each city,
in Sippar they are celibate
and never marry.
They live inside the gagum,
a walled area inside the temple complex,
but are free to come and go,
and receive visitors.
Beltani owns barley fields and a tavern.
Her brother manages these businesses while
she fulfils her duties as a priestess.
This morning, he makes
a troubling accusation:
her tavern keeper has been diluting
wine with water.
If true, this means she’s been undermining
the business Beltani relies on
to sustain her in old age.
But the consequences would be even
higher for the tavern keeper:
the punishment of diluting wine
is death by drowning.
The temple court is meeting
this afternoon.
Beltani has just a few short hours
to find out whether there’s any truth
to these allegations.
But she can’t go to the tavern
to investigate.
Taverns are off limits for priestesses,
even priestesses who own them.
She could be burned to death for entering.
So she sends for the tavern keeper to meet
her at the temple of Shamash,
the patron god of Sippar.
The temple is a stepped pyramid
called a ziggurat,
in the heart of the city
and visible from twenty miles away.
It symbolically connects heaven and earth
and is viewed as the literal home
of the god Shamash,
who gave humanity the code of laws
and is the judge
of the Babylonian pantheon.
Beltani leaves an offering of bread
and sesame oil in a private room.
She never enters the inner chamber
of the temple where the god lives,
a place so holy only high priestesses
and kings visit.
Outside, worshippers play music
and leave gifts,
which are later collected and used to feed
temple workers, including the naditu.
The tavern keeper is waiting
with grim news.
She says Beltani’s brother has been
altering the weights
used to measure payments
to cheat customers.
When the tavern keeper confronted him,
he falsely accused her of watering
down the wine.
If true, Beltani’s brother
is the dishonest one—
and altering weights is another crime
punishable by death.
Beltani is running out of time
to get to the bottom of this.
Though she can’t go to the tavern,
she can check on the barley fields
her brother manages
to see if he’s been honest there.
In the granary, she sees much more grain
than he reported to her.
He’s been cheating her out of her share.
Like all naditu in Sippar,
Beltani inherited the same portion
of her father’s property as her brother.
These were rare circumstances for women
in a time and place
where property passed through men.
Still, their families didn’t always honor
their rights.
Although naditu traditionally went
into business with male relatives,
the law stated they can choose
someone else
if their brothers or uncles weren’t
up to the task.
With the evidence she needs,
she hurries to court.
A judge presides over the temple court
along with two naditu—
the overseer of the gagum and a scribe.
Beltani asks to remove her brother
as her business manager,
citing the granary as evidence
that he is mismanaging her properties.
The judge grants her request.
The scribe records the new contract
in cuneiform into a wet clay tablet,
and the matter is settled.
She’s protected her income
and spared her brother’s life
by withholding the true extent
of his crimes.
Perhaps it is time to adopt
a younger priestess:
someone to take care of her in old age
and inherit her property,
who might do a better job of helping
with her business.